Discus Award Winner
Winners Gallery
PHOTOS
Rachael Hale
12th Grade, IL
ATTRIBUTES
Academics
Since I have been younger I have also had a great support system, pushing me to challenge myself. In the end it all paid off. I am closing high school with a 3.67 GPA and proud of it because I pushed myself taking AP classes when everyone else was taking the easy way out. Even when it was tempting to take the easy way out, I took the harder class. I have always been an honor student, so everyone around me expected nothing but the best from me and, and that's what I expected from myself. I'm happy I pushed myself because now that I am applying to colleges I get into the top schools because of my grades ad the rigorous courses I decided to take. I am so proud of myself because I continued to do it all while working, participating in extracurriculars, and still finding time for things I enjoy
Work
At the end of my sophomore year, I begin work at my local McDonald's. I always said that the last place on earth I wanted to end up was McDonald's, but they called and I took the job and I had to do what I had to do. All the managers took to me and I learned quickly. Pretty soon I was getting raises, and the general manager offered me a manger position, it was in my best interest to turn it down to focus on my education because I knew I wanted to go onto college. Even though I never saw myself at a place like McDonald's having that job for almost two years now, taught me so much about myself and others. I learned how to work better with others, and build better communication skills. It’s not the ideal job but it’s a stepping stone to where I am going in my education and career goals.
Community Service
During My senior year, a program I was involved in required us to complete a senior service project. I came up with the idea to help the hungry for the holidays. For Thanksgiving, I organized a food drive to collect baskets of food to give to families for the holidays, in order to provide a family a meal for the holidays I enlisted the help of my church and various organizations that I was involved in. With the help of the community, with the food we collected we provided Thanksgiving dinner to four families. I was so inspired to see that people so unselfishly gave to people who didn't have anything to put on their tables even though they might have been struggling to put a turkey on their table also. Seeing everybody come together for a common goal was great.
