Larissa James-LaBranche '19 Recruiting Profile

Volunteering and my church are big parts of my life and the lessons I have learned and skills I have acquired makes the feeling of helping others so much better.  I have volunteered both locally and on travel mission trips with my youth group and family.  The travel trips were doing construction, clean-up and digging a ditch in West Virginia.  Locally, I have worked in the church garden to plant and harvest food for the local food banks, done yard work for the elderly, cooked and served meals, cleaned shelters, packed food, participated in a 30-hour famine, assisted with yard sale merchandise, run concession stands and volunteered in the nursery.  Each activity has provided opportunities for me to learn and grow and apply what I learn to other areas of my life.

We live in a fairly new home, so construction is not something that I grew up with.  The mission trips have given me the opportunity to work with power tools and work in some challenging conditions and step out of my comfort zone.  Each job site included a professional to instruct us.  Some of the girls hung back and preferred to do yard work or cleanup while I donned a Tyvek suit and crawled under a house to staple insulation, grabbed an industrial size nail gun to frame a garage and ran a saw to cut boards for a wheelchair ramp.  When I first started with them I felt awkward and slow.  However, after a short time, while I would not have compared to a professional, I was much more efficient.  I really enjoy opportunities to try new things and challenge myself.  Those skills translate to other areas of my life in school and playing softball where I appreciate constructive criticism, am enthusiastic about trying new things and don’t get discouraged if a new technique is difficult or feels a bit awkward at first.

All of these activities have required coordination and cooperation, some more than others.  Particularly on the construction sites, each person has a job to do, but it all has to be coordinated.  If one person does not do their part, the project will be inefficient at best and at worst will fail.  If somebody is not doing well it makes a lot more sense to help them learn how to do the job better (like me with the saw) than to get angry with them or let them continue to struggle.  You really learn to appreciate the value of working together and practice pays off.  We worked much faster on the second day than the first one.  Improvement of individual skills is important, but practicing and working together is really the key to success.

In many of the volunteer opportunities we were working with people who had very little, but seemed so grateful for what they did have and for our help.  Some of them told us stories of being successful in business, serving in the armed forces or being an athlete before they came to their current circumstances.  It really puts things in perspective and makes me appreciate what I have.  I realize that I have been blessed with a good intellect, a strong work ethic and athletic abilities.  I don’t want to waste any of those blessings.  None of us knows what tomorrow will bring be it a lost job and home, a natural disaster that takes away our worldly possessions or an injury or illness that limits our abilities.  I think it is important to make the most of every opportunity to improve myself and the world around me.