Brooklyn Waters

I am Brooklyn Waters and am an XLab student at One Stone. I am passionate about providing service to people in need, in any way possible. I’ve grown up volunteering in the community and have discovered that I often put myself in the shoes of others so that I can fully advocate for them. Some of my special interests include helping homeless teens and those who go to bed hungry. As my artifact, I’m sharing a picture of an experience I had volunteering. This specific experience was volunteering with a local nonprofit organization to help fill holiday food baskets for the families that could not afford to buy groceries for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.This experience was eye opening for me to say the least. I went into the center to volunteer with my family and we were given baskets with pictures of these little kids faces on them with instructions of how much of each grocery item to put in the basket, based on the size of their family. Being able to see the faces of these kids brought it into perspective that we were giving these kids a holiday dinner. A holiday dinner with family is something many of us take for granted. Many of us don’t realize the impact that we can have on someone else’s life, whether it is providing a holiday meal or saying hello to a stranger. I want to bring awareness to the things we take for granted; those who suffer from homelessness or families who struggle to get by often don’t have the funds or ability to make a warm meal for their families or provide that comfortable feeling of home that most of us have grown used to. Covid has disrupted the way I provide service. Pre-covid, I typically dress up and scare kids on Halloween, my family volunteers at Giraffe Laugh when opportunities open up, and we make food baskets for folks during Thanksgiving. This year, we haven’t done those things, out of caution and to keep people safe. However, I had the opportunity to help parents in the community by working on the Xlab Extravaganza. I prefer to serve the way I did pre-covid, but I’m grateful that we’re able to work to serve in covid-safe ways as part of my education at Lab51.