Sophia Imler

Oldham Co. HS
Service Hours: 30 hours and counting!
Beneficiaries Served: Teenagers across Kentucky and beyond!

Essentially, my passion project was created to be the one thing I longed for years ago when I was on the edge of death. For a while, I was furious because I thought it was unbelievable how we supposedly know ourselves more than anyone else on this earth. Yet, some of us break at the words from someone who hasn’t even lived our life for a minute, having in mind the girl I tried to blame my eating disorder on. However, I was already broken and it did not have anything to do with her. For as long as I can remember, I had been suffering from a generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and major depressive disorder. Additionally, due to a mixture of environmental factors and simply trying to find any coping mechanism, I began controlling what I ate. For a while I only engaged in disordered eating, but at this point, these tendencies quickly spiraled out of control, essentially into my full-blown eating disorder. As a result, I experienced multiple physical symptoms to the point where I almost lost my life. On top of all of that, obsessively controlling what I ate deeply affected my mood. Ultimately leading me to believe my only options were starving myself to death or suicide.

In my darkest times, I felt like I was the only person who was enduring all that I was. When people told me that I was not alone, I did not believe them whatsoever. I would spend hours searching to see if anyone else's stories were similar to mine; however, before I got far in my research, I would be engrossed in other topics that only furthered my eating disorder and negative beliefs. As I continued recovery I began to notice that there was a minuscule amount of resources that support teens and their mental health without an official diagnosis. Since I knew the trouble I encountered, even with being diagnosed, I couldn’t even imagine what those who went undiagnosed endured. Ultimately, making it clear that I wanted to do what I could in order to spread positivity and be the resource I couldn’t find when I was struggling.
This is how The Compassion Project was born. With the stress of everything going on in the world, I wanted to create a safe space for individuals like my younger self to read about how to better themselves and our community around them. While many know it is important to be kind to others, it is also important to be kind to yourself. Therefore, we wanted to create an outlet for teens to read all about spreading compassion to themselves and the people around them!

Creating the website took much longer than expected but we persevered and it is live! So far we have two posts published, one in review, and a few in the making! Although Y-corps was the reason The Compassion Project was created, The Compassion Project will be continued past our service trip. I hope to always be able to have this blog and continue the impact this mental health blog has already made! If you would like to keep up with all of our posts you can visit our site at www.thecompassionproject.life

 

Kyla Searp

Walton-Verona HS
Service Hours: 20
Beneficiaries Served: The recipient of my e wry was the Welcome House located in Covington witch is a homeless shelter

This year I decided to give to the less fortunate with my communities help. I am collected anything extra that people in my community had clothes, food, games etc. I collected extra belongings people in my community wanted to donate and went and grabbed them! After sorting through the donations I took the donations to the “Welcome House”. At a later date I made sure those who donated would receive photos of the thankful faces you they created. This way we could all experience the direct impact of these actions. If they we’re interested I had them take the following survey.
https://my.forms.app/form/6297ff6bbd94a175bb7f46fc

 

Bridget Joslin

Foundation Christian Academy
Service Hours: 10 hours
Beneficiaries Served: America Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society holds a special place in my heart and the hearts of many survivors and families of people who lost their battle to the dreadful disease. There are so many different types of cancer, and almost everyone knows someone who has been effected by it. Although I never met them, I had a grandmother and a grandfather who both succumbed to the ravages of cancer.

My passion project this year was, and probably will always be, The Warren County Relay for Life. My mom’s friend has always been a volunteer and worked closely with the Bowling Green Chapter of the American Cancer Society, and I was able to help her prepare for the Relay for Life, which took place at Hot Rods Stadium in Bowling Green. The day started around 9:00 in the morning and didn’t end until well after dark. I helped prepare the lanterns for the survivors and those who would be honored that night who were no longer with us. Let me tell you, if anyone ever wondered, there are a lot of steps in a baseball stadium. I must have gone up and down the steps 100 times while setting everything up. But it was well worth it in the end.

For me, this was a way to help a cause. But having not been very personally effected by cancer, I didn’t realize just how important the cause was. For survivors to be able to say “I survived” while holding a light is a huge accomplishment and what a way to honor the people who lost their battle. It is the hope that this event, like so many others held by the American Cancer Society, will help to fund research for a cure so that other generations won’t have to take on the dire task of fighting the disease or watching a family member fight the disease.

This is definitely something I will do again next year and will look for other positive ways to contribute to American Cancer Society.

 

Luke Hampton

Great Crossing HS
Service Hours: I served for 26 hours
Beneficiaries Served: I served at the Amen House food pantry in Georgetown, KY.

For my passion project, I chose to volunteer at the Amen House food pantry in Georgetown, KY. Although I hadn't necessarily experienced food insecurity before, I felt a calling to serve there. I filled many roles, in which I stocked shelves, unloaded trucks, and filled carts with food for recipients at the pantry.

Volunteering at the Amen House was (and will continue to be) a memorable experience. Working together with other volunteers, and filling the roles mentioned in the last paragraph, were very memorable on their own. But the most interesting part to me was the clients. Seeing who was truly affected by hunger was intriguing. I learned that hunger affects more people than I thought- just because someone drove a nice car didn't mean they could afford to feed their family.

But ultimately, the most impactful part of the experience was knowing that I was making such a large impact on so many people. During my time at the amen house so far, I had helped fill a few hundred carts with canned and frozen goods. Knowing that that cart would feed someone and their family for a few weeks was astonishing.

There was a quote taken from a client at the Amen House hung up in the basement where I worked, and it said "A complete stranger gets to decide if and what I eat today."

Through volunteering at the Amen house, I became that stranger.

 

Will Schindler

Scott Co. HS
Service Hours: 19
Beneficiaries Served: The children’s ministry at Georgetown Baptist Church

For my passion project, I wanted to give back to a community that I have been a part of nearly my whole life, my church, Georgetown Baptist. More specifically, I wanted to volunteer for vacation bible school (VBS) to serve the children ́s ministry. When I was in elementary school, VBS was a fun place to go during the summer where I could learn about the bible and have good older role models that showed me how to treat everyone with kindness and respect. I wanted to make sure that the kids now could have that same opportunity.
I was asked to be the drama leader at VBS because of my experience in plays and musicals at my high school. This was an important role because it meant I was responsible for finding other actors to play parts for the bible story skits that happened at the beginning of each night. I also had to find and create props and costumes, learn and perform a character for each night’s bible story skit, and play the character of ̈the wise one ̈ during the rest of VBS, where I roamed the building talking to kids about what they were learning.
This was a difficult job that was overwhelming at times but despite this everything turned out well. I grew my ability to interact with young children and I became more connected with my community. My service impacted the kids that attended VBS by helping them understand what they were learning as well as helping create an atmosphere where it felt more like bible times.

 

Mary Margaret Vickers

DuPont Manual HS
Service Hours: 20
Beneficiaries Served: This project was done to serve the Henderson Shelter for Women and Children located in Henderson, Kentucky (my hometown).

I have loved service and the marrying of personal values with helping others since I was small. However, I did not realize its full potential until I finally got the chance to go on my first real Y-Corps service trip last summer in the July of 2021.
In the past years, I have stayed safe and within my comfort zone for my Passion Projects. I stayed close to my strengths, which were mostly limited to art, and did not strive to reach out and advocate. My freshman year’s passion project was born within the confines of my quarantine 2020 house as I made 100 hand-sewed masks. In my sophomore year, I reached out to a local volunteer organization and made 100 handmade father’s day cards for members in the community. While these were fulfilling projects, they did not challenge me to think about the perspective of others like I needed to for this year’s passion project to be successful and genuine. I needed to be the someone, like our GFI 22’ theme, and I would not have been able to learn these skills without my Y-Corps trip and service.
My most intense and most important memory of service was not even service. During our service trip, my Y-corps group helped clean up the yard of a domestic violence shelter. To get to the yard, we had to walk through the house. Young children and mothers lived around the rooms, one of the young boys (around age 3) dancing around butt naked watching Paw Patrol. While we thought the little boy was silly and laughed together, that experience really stuck with me. These families were not able to leave this house to get anything for fear of their abusive household. This, as well as my memories of my own childhood birthdays, inspired my passion project, which is the production and personalization of 8 birthday kits. Because of the limited mobility of residents of women and children shelters and the importance birthdays have for young children’s mental health, I thought this was a good project and a way to expand my boundaries of service and advocacy.
The project included buying the supplies, packaging them in special birthday tradition, making small gifts for the boxes, and packing them safely and securely. I drew upon my dear memories of my childhood birthdays, such as the birthday crowns/thrones my mom would make me, the balloons scattered around the house, and the cake. I tried to alter these classic birthday traditions to be more applicable for someone who is living in a shelter like the one in Henderson, changing the throne to customizable paper crowns, including supplies and recipes for mug cake, and providing balloons+stickers+bracelets. I also made sure to buy sturdy and clear storage containers so that the organization could utilize the storage space after the recipient used all of their birthday gifts! Each birthday kit included cake mix, a mug, a recipe for cake mix mug cake, a handmade friendship bracelet, a birthday card, a baggie of balloons, a paper birthday crown, and a bag of foam stickers with a variety of colors and shapes for each recipient to have plenty of options to personalize! I really had to reflect and take a moment in every step of the project to make sure I was creating something that would bring happiness and relief to the recipient. I can say easily that this is the hardest I’ve worked on a passion project and I can’t wait to deliver the birthday kits to my hometown. I will continue to make important projects with equally strong personal connections and contributions to the community!

 

Lorelai Anne

Kentucky Country Day
Service Hours: 33
Beneficiaries Served: Inclusivewe, a business that advocates for equality

Growing up I was always told to cover up or that i'm being a distraction. I saw this as the norm because every girl was told to show less skin. Teachers would bring up the dress code constantly and would pull you out of class if you were being a "distraction". Slowly I realized, how messed up our society is by controlling women's bodies and caring more about what we are wearing then what we have to say. Later I talked to my mom on why I was feeling so uncomfortable and she explained to me that sadly this is how women are treated and we need to advocate for what is right, this is when she mentioned inclusivewe. Her and two others had been working on this business that not only advocates for women's rights but equality for everyone, this is when I knew this had to be my passion project.

Our society shuts out women's voices everywhere just because of our gender. This impacts women greatly and causes us to be silenced in the workplace, politics, and in our own homes. This is what inclusivewe is all about, advocating for whats right. They donate 50% of profit to an organization that correlates with the items they sell. We need to speak our minds and let no one silence what we have to say. This glass ceiling above us will shatter once we all take charge for women's rights.

Currently we are still shut out and silenced and it needs to be stopped. Become a strong leader in your community and speak out about what you believe in. This is what I have done with inclusivewe. I have spoken out about women's rights to others who may agree or disagree but either way making sure your voice gets heard is the best thing you can do. This is what inclusivewe has taught me and has ultimately changed me into a stronger leader and advocate.

 

Dylan Clarke

Sayre School HS
Service Hours: 20
Beneficiaries Served: Sayre School Middle School

I have a passion for early childhood education and literacy. This past summer, through the YMCA Changemaker’s Institute I created a Battle of the Books program for 5th and 6th Grade students in order to help them create a love for reading. My mother inspired me to institute this program at my own school because her old company, American Girl, sponsored a similar chapter in Chicago schools. By participating in this program, I received $800 in grant money in order to help purchase books and make the meetings fun for the kids to attend.

The American Battle of the Books organization already exists and I would be adding a chapter to my school. According to the website, “America's Battle of the Books is a reading incentive program for students in 3rd thru 12th grades. Students read books and come together, usually in groups, to demonstrate their abilities and to test their knowledge of the books they have read.” This will help students hone their reading skills and appeal to their competitive side. I started this initiative to help my younger brother and his friends enjoy reading. He is in second grade and while he won’t be able to participate in this program before I leave for college, I wanted to leave behind a program for his benefit. I believe that reading is a skill needed to succeed in life and by creating a love of reading, these kids will go on to do great things.

I met with one of the 5th-grade teachers and the librarian in the middle school at Sayre every Tuesday this school year to help in planning the program for next year. I have purchased the books and the membership to the American Battle of the Books program and recently I took the time to place QR codes on the books so that they can be checked out in the library for the participants to read. Next year, the kids that participate can check the books out at the library, read them, and then we will meet once a month to talk about their progress in the books and the questions that they might be asked during the competition that will happen in the spring. I hope that this will be a way for these kids to begin a long-lasting love of reading.

 

Rebecca Kaelin

Holy Cross HS - Louisville
Service Hours: 21
Beneficiaries Served: WE Day Kentucky: WE Day Kentucky Youth Board

I WAS STUMPED when I was thinking of organizations and what I wanted to do as a passion project. I had no idea what I should do as my passion project. I have hosted drives and served organizations in the past, but I wanted to go beyond that and reach my fullest potential in helping an organization. As the days went by, I still did not know what I would do. However, I realized that I can serve an organization that I have been active in since my freshman year of high school: WE Day Kentucky.
WE Day Kentucky is an annual event that celebrates, highlights, and honors the service of the youth throughout Kentucky. In preparation for the WE Day Kentucky event, there is a group of selected teens called the "WE Day Kentucky Youth Board". I am a part of the Youth Board, in which I am on the social media committee and help with the Instagram account and advertising the event for the event. The Youth Board hosted many long meetings leading up to the event. We created themes to focus on during the event, such as environmental justice and mental health. We researched the facts and how we can make small changes in our life to support the environment and ways to encourage stable mental health. During the event, I introduced National Geographic Photographer Joel Sartore at WE Day and was a part of the "hype team". Over 5,000 teens across Kentucky were watching our event online.
Through the WE Day Kentucky Youth Board, I was able to give my time and talent. I was involved in an empowering event that reached thousands of people. My role helped make WE Day Kentucky a success. I was able to show Kentucky that teens like me are standing up and making a change in the world. My experience on the Youth Board has made me more confident in my ability to be a servant leader and changemaker in my community. I learned that one does not have to be an adult with authority or prestigious connections, but an inspired and driven teen who sees an issue and wants to be a part of the solution.

 

Coco Charlton

Assumption HS
Service Hours: I served 45 hours towards my passion project
Beneficiaries Served: The organization who was the recipient of my work was the Sisters of Mercy at their headquarters located in Washington D.C.

The way I decided to create my passion project was from the mission trip I took with my school during the end of February. We have a week called Mission Week and each grade does a different thing, and this year as a senior I was given the opportunity to take a mission trip with some classmates and teachers and go to Washington D.C. . We went to learn and advocate for one of the critical concerns and the one we got this year was immigration. So we spent some time listening from an immigration lawyer, some other sisters of mercy who work to advocate for immigrant rights.

We met with people from CASA which is a non-profit that helps immigrant families. We also got the chance to meet with a resource that taught the group how to lobby in the most effective way. We learned many things throughout the week and prepared a proposal on how immigrants can be helped through changing deportation laws. We got the chance to meet with Mitch McConnell's staff and propose the change of including at least 50 million for legal representation for people in immigration court proceedings.

Even though this was a group effort I did learn many things. It was a great chance to see my classmates and friends and grow as they realized that the privilege they have goes beyond skin tone. As a person of color and someone who has been adopted from a another country, it was very eye opening to me to see that I was VERY lucky to be able to live in this country at such a low effort part and not have to fear for my life in order to live a good life. It was challenging to meet with the senators staff because they stood there and listened and took in this information, but at the end of the meeting it felt satisfying but also felt very unsuccessful. The only reason being is that there was no follow up and personally I felt that they listened to us, but just kind of like pushed this aside.

Although there were ups and downs during this process, it was a very interesting process to learn about and getting to do advocacy work through a different and more "formal" way was very exciting.