STUDENT VOICE, Promoting POSITIVITY IN YOUR COMMUNITY COLUMN BY ANTHONY TORRANCE HIGH SCHOOL INTERN, SCIENCE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
Making a positive influence on your community (both in school and at home) is something I not only value, but I also think every high school student should work to achieve. A lot of teenagers between the ages of fourteen and eighteen would ask me, “Well how can a kid like me get involved? Don’t you have to be an adult to do something that actually matters?” To this, I disagree. It doesn’t matter what age you are, as long as you have a little ambition and a lot of love! For example, at my school – Science Leadership Academy, or SLA – we value each other as members of one big community, and we respect SLA as a place of learning, a peaceful and productive environment. The students have so much respect for SLA in fact, that they are currently making an inner-school campaign for all students to clean up any trash seen in the school and make sure all recyclables go into the proper bin. The students doing it aren’t members of student government nor are they even seniors. They did this without a teacher asking or suggesting them to do so. That’s an example of becoming involved with your community, even if it is one wrapper at a time. Other members of my school are in BuildOn, a youth focused organization that specializes in the revitalization of city slums. Some are also independently working with other organizations. We even had a school car wash last summer to raise money for the school. The fundraiser was started and facilitated by us! You don’t have to be an adult to start helping your community out. You don’t even have to be in college. It starts as soon as you want it to. I’m only eighteen years old, and I have been the CEO of my own non-profit organization, Phresh Philadelphia, for one-and-a-half years now. I started it with my co-founder Rashaun Williams in October of 2010, and since then, we have done keynote presentations for middle schools, several block clean-up events, networked with dozens of other entrepreneurs and small businesses, and created a new business initiative, called F.L.A.S.H., or Future Leaders Advancing Self Help. All of this has been done by us – and we started it as teenagers! We also have a ‘.com’ as well as a ‘.org.’ On the sites, we give those who are interested the option to join us. We are always looking for new volunteers. Now, creating and establishing your own business won’t be a ‘cake walk.’ It does take what I like to call the three D’s: drive, determination, and dedication. I’m not saying this is for everyone, but don’t think that because your still in school, that it’s unachievable. Become a prophet of your own progress, and you shall prosper!
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