“This I Believe” Outline & Blog Topic Announcement

1. Introduction
   1. Attention getter
      1. When you think about what a leader or leadership is, what comes to mind? Power? Control? Influence? To me it means so much more and can be used to make a positive difference in people’s lives.
   2.  Context/ethos
      1. I lead semiannual food drives for the Flemington Area Food Pantry for the past five years, during high school I led athletic programs for students with special needs, and so far in college I am involvement philanthropically through several student organizations.
   3.  Thesis
      1. I believe in using leadership to help others because it is an incredibly rewarding experience that makes a huge difference in the lives of others.
   4.  Preview
   5. This has not always been the case, so first I am going to talk about what caused this shift in my identity and then a story about the effect that this has had on my life.
2. Body
   1. Cause – As part of my high school soccer program’s captain my coach tasked me with leading practices and games for special needs players at another school. As the leader of my team, I agreed but treat is as just another assignment that I had to do.
      1.  Subpoints
         1. Despite being apprehensive, as the training session went on, I saw the smiles on everyone’s face. This gave me a sense of pride and was so rewarding.
      2.  Subpoints
         1. After the hour was over, I was approached by the teacher who supervise the program at this school. She thanked me and said that it had been a long time since she had seen her students this happy. Being able to make a difference in people’s lives, no matter how small, through leadership is so important and this experience engrained this is me.

[Transition to MP B] – This experience has had a lasting effect on my life in terms of how I act and view leadership, so I am going to go into an example of this impact.

1. 1. Effect – Three months after I lead the soccer program, I decided to lead a community food drive. I lead groups of neighbors and volunteers in spreading awareness about food insecurity, collecting food, and delivering to the food pantry. The food drive raised 500 pounds of food. With this becoming engrained in my identity, I have done it twice per year for every year since, with the most recent drive total over 1,300 pounds of food.
      1.  Subpoints
         1. Seeing the difference it made in the lives of the people visiting the pantry as well for the workers who were no longer dealing with a food shortage, was another rewarding moment of pride.
      2.  Subpoints
         1. Making a difference in the lives of members of my community, many of which are my friends, through my leadership is extremely impactful. It has allowed families to not go without food during the holidays and the summer.

[signal closure]

1. Conclusion
2. 1. Summarize main points
      1. My involvements today and the philanthropic events that I lead have are rooted in my experience leading my teammates to help students with special needs. All have been rewarding and important ways to use my leadership.
   2. Restate thesis
      1. I believe in using leadership to help others because it is so rewarding to make a difference in people’s lives.
   3. Memorable conclusion
      1. Whenever I have the opportunity to help someone, I make the most out of it. Doing so has been just as important in my own life as it has been in the lives of those I have helped.

For my passion blog topic, I am going to be writing about working out. This is something that I am very passionate about and I spend a lot of my free time doing so. Throughout my blog I will be focusing on maintaining a balance between being informational and including personal experience. Some of the topics I am thinking about including are structuring a workout, different types of exercises, how to get started, and more. I think that this blog would be helpful for people starting out in the gym as well as for people with more experience.

For my civic issues blog, I am going to write about access to clean drinking water in the United States. This is still a major issues in society, despite the United States being considered a very advanced country. Having consistently clean water is something that many people take for granted, while so many people suffer from lacking access to it. This is an issue on multiple levels; it has roots in politics and policies, socioeconomic status, as well as privilege. These are all areas that I am planning on delving deeper into.