Each September at JA's annual Board Retreat, we give our "L. Dean Rees Scholarship" recipient with their award money. Our 2011-12 winner is Danielle Maxfield, a freshman at the University of Utah; she graduated from East High School in June. I was so impressed with her speech, I asked her for a copy that I could add to our blog. Please read her speech to see how Junior Achievement is changing lives everyday.
L. Dean Rees was JA's greatest volunteer. He volunteered at Taylorsville High School for over 12 years and helped facilitate the bowl-a-thon at Savage Industries before he passed away in 2004. We are proud to have this scholarship in his name. Please read Danielle's speech below.
Danielle Maxfield's speech
Given September 15, 2011
I want to begin by telling you how my experience began with Junior Achievement. I attended Bennion Elementary. When I was in fourth grade, I remember having three individuals from Junior Achievement come in and talk to my class, two women and one man. I remember that the women were beautiful in their pencil skirts and fancy clothes. The man looked so nice in his pin-striped shirt. I was just in awe as I looked at these gorgeous adults. I also remember hearing about how I should save money, get an education, and gain an occupation so that I could become like them. I hung onto their every word. Throughout that week, kids asked lots of questions like, "What car do you drive" and "how much money do you make?" Bennion Elementary School is a Title-One school. There were many minorities who hadn't seen people like this before, because most of their parents worked 3 jobs a day and couldn't afford to look like them. The fact that these volunteers would take time out of their busy lives was a huge deal. Later on, they spoke to us about honesty and how by being honest in everything we did we would come out on top and have greater success than we would otherwise. If we were honest, we could have the success they had. They eventually left, and after a few weeks I was taking a test and one of the coolest girls in school asked me for an answer to a question on the test. Even though I knew it would be wrong, I wanted to tell her the answer so badly. I thought, 'maybe if I cheat, I can just be cool.' I wasn't very cool in elementary, actually I wasn't very cool in Junior High or High School either, but I wanted to tell her the answer so I would have the chance to be cool. Then I remembered the three people who came to my class, who had become my heroes. I thought 'if I cheat and lie, than I will not only be letting go of my integrity, I will be letting them down.' I didn't cheat. I went on with my life not being very cool. I never became cool, but I was honest, and knew that someday I would end out on top. I didn't know when, but I knew it would happen because that's what the volunteers said.
No comments:
Post a Comment