As a Governor’s Page, I had the opportunity to meet various government officials and shadow employees. As a Page, I was able to present a policy proposal on a issue that I was passionate about and lead a service project to solve an issue in my community.

Through partnering with my school's International Education Center and my local World Relief Center, I aimed to host a hygiene drive to collect items for refugees in my community. To aid in the collection of these items, I hosted an event with my school's International Education Center to raise awareness on refugees.

My main project goal was to collect hygiene items for refugees at my local World Relief Center. To aid in this, I created posters that were displayed around my school, posted to social media, and shared through school-wide emails. To bring more attention to my cause, I hosted an educational event with my school's International Education Center to raise awareness on refugees and my hygiene drive. I had almost 100 attendees and was invited to host the same event at another college campus by the Coordinator of my school's International Education Center, who was thoroughly impressed with the high amount of engagement at the event. In addition to hosting the event, I also created a competition between the freshmen and sophomore homerooms at my school. The homeroom with the most items collected would win a pizza party. Raising awareness on my hygiene drive through events, competitions, social media, and more required detailed levels of planning, many meetings, etc.

After hosting my educational event, the competition between the various homerooms at my school, and spreading the word through any means I could, I was able to collect over 1,000 individual hygiene items (1,054 to be exact!). The World Relief Center in my area was very excited to come and pick up all the items, and I was very excited for the items to be put to good use!

Although I initially was planning to simply do a hygiene drive, I realized that I had the opportunity to turn it into so much more. As someone who finds great joy in serving refugees and immigrants due to my personal background as a second-generation immigrant, I absolutely love giving back to my community through any means possible. Leading my initiative allowed me to take charge and be the change I want to see in my community. After hosting my educational event which was much more successful that I could have ever hoped, it brought me immense joy to share my passion and educate students. I realized that many students in my community were not aware of the struggles faced by immigrants and refugees. Hosting the event not only brought more attention to my project, but it also helped students connect my initiative to real issues that they were not as familiar with before. My project was much more successful than I could have ever hoped and I have even been invited to another college campus to host the same event. I am excited to grow my cause and owe a large amount of my success to my fellow students, staff, faculty, and community members at my school who made this all possible.