How has your service helped you develop as a leader?
Keavash Assani
When I look out into the world I see people starving and people who are well off walking by them with a scowl on their face. I see how a natural disaster can demolish a city, but most importantly, I see how kindness and compassion that can overcome these natural disasters and atrocities. I see the future as a community so that when one piece breaks, the rest readily come to help put it back together. That is what civic engagement and community service means to me. My goal is to help develop this mindset locally, statewide, nationally and then globally by inspiring others to serve. These are high aspirations, but I’ve always believed if you reach for the stars and grab the moon on the way down, you would have still gotten further than you would have if you had only reached for the tree branch or never reached at all.
When I was younger, I was able to discover my calling early on. By middle school, I had lost my mother to renal cell carcinoma, my brother had lost his kidneys to kidney failure and my father had had two heart attacks. I was moved, motivated, and inspired to make a difference. The outlet I chose was civic engagement; I fully immersed myself into service.
Since attending the University of Cincinnati I have truly been able to give back to my community, becoming a recognized campus figure and gaining experiences unlike any other. Throughout my educational career, I have volunteered countless hours through the ER of my local hospital assisting nurses and doctors and countless hours tutoring individuals through Big Buddies. My freshman year, I became part of the organization called Circle K International (CKI), which is the largest collegiate service organization in the world and a branch of Kiwanis International. By my junior year in college, I had become the president of CKI and have provided several service opportunities in our community that have allowed us to perform over 1,000 hours of service in this past year alone. We frequently volunteer at the Freestore Foodbank to assemble food packages for children of low-income families, at Read Around the World to mentor children at the Wesley Chapel Mission Center, and the Center for Courageous Kids where we supervise, guide and provide a fun, engaging environment for children with diseases. Each weekend they host a different disease category and we come and devote our entire weekends to helping children forget about the hardships they face day to day. It is a great cause that has allowed us to build lifelong relationships with these families and make a difference in their lives. Along with this we have volunteered at the Queen Bee Marathon, hosted district rallies where other CKI groups from different colleges came together to perform Large Scale Service Projects in the Cincinnati community, and have volunteered at the SPCA, Habitat for Humanity, Matthews 25 Ministries, Cincy Cleanup and more.
As president, I have increased membership by 500%, and helped our organization raise over $2,000 for neonatal tetanus vaccinations worldwide. I have led the team in these efforts in addition to providing several fellowship, leadership, and service opportunities locally, statewide and nationally through different conferences and group collaborations. As a leader, I have truly learned the skills of cooperation, collaboration, communication, and motivation and learned to pass these on to make others both great community leaders and global citizens. This next semester we are leading a community development program to implement a playground at an underprivileged school in Cincinnati. We have applied for funding and will be using these funds to purchase playground equipment and work with community partners to accomplish our goal. It is a tasking endeavor, but with the hard work and enthusiasm that our group demonstrates, we will be able to accomplish this goal. Hellen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” This is why our group has lead endeavors to engage high school students in the Cincinnati area through building Key Clubs. Key Club is the high school level of CKI and there are currently none in Cincinnati. We have been working with advisors and schools to implement this club so that we can spread service throughout the community and make students better leaders and citizens. I have already started this club at my hometown high school and next year Key Club at Anna High School will officially start holding meetings. I look forward to mentoring them and guiding them to both contribute and give back to their community.
In addition, last spring I volunteered twice a week at Santa Maria’s Community Service Inc. for a class called Service Learning in Spanish, where I was able to have a personal impact in the Price Hill community’s Hispanic immigrant population. This opportunity has allowed me to give underprivileged individuals access to healthcare resources that they would not have been able to obtain due to language barriers. At Santa Maria’s, I was the only volunteer that could speak Spanish. I took on many responsibilities and served as a translator of important documents, filled questionnaires in the database, secured financial assistance for medical bills and more. Loving the opportunity, I volunteered as often as I could. I guided and lead a group of individuals through 5k training and I helped organize and run the health fairs that Santa Maria has held in the Price Hill community for the past two years. I also lead the development of a pamphlet that guides healthy eating and lifestyles directed towards the Hispanic community to maintain a healthy heart. This summer I will start an internship as a volunteer at the Good Samaritan Health Clinic as patient-physician interpreter. I am overly enthusiastic to embark on this endeavor to alleviate healthcare barriers and improve the treatment of individuals.
I will continue giving and serving throughout my life to enact change and make a difference in the lives of others. After graduation I will attend medical school to obtain my MD/PhD, so that I can become an urologist and eventually a hospital director, where I will save lives and provide the best healthcare policies and regulations possible. Life is about helping one another and spreading love. Each day I go out of my way to help someone in need. I hope I can inspire others to do the same so that they can improve their community and piece it back together when it falls apart.
Keavash Assani
When I look out into the world I see people starving and people who are well off walking by them with a scowl on their face. I see how a natural disaster can demolish a city, but most importantly, I see how kindness and compassion that can overcome these natural disasters and atrocities. I see the future as a community so that when one piece breaks, the rest readily come to help put it back together. That is what civic engagement and community service means to me. My goal is to help develop this mindset locally, statewide, nationally and then globally by inspiring others to serve. These are high aspirations, but I’ve always believed if you reach for the stars and grab the moon on the way down, you would have still gotten further than you would have if you had only reached for the tree branch or never reached at all.
When I was younger, I was able to discover my calling early on. By middle school, I had lost my mother to renal cell carcinoma, my brother had lost his kidneys to kidney failure and my father had had two heart attacks. I was moved, motivated, and inspired to make a difference. The outlet I chose was civic engagement; I fully immersed myself into service.
Since attending the University of Cincinnati I have truly been able to give back to my community, becoming a recognized campus figure and gaining experiences unlike any other. Throughout my educational career, I have volunteered countless hours through the ER of my local hospital assisting nurses and doctors and countless hours tutoring individuals through Big Buddies. My freshman year, I became part of the organization called Circle K International (CKI), which is the largest collegiate service organization in the world and a branch of Kiwanis International. By my junior year in college, I had become the president of CKI and have provided several service opportunities in our community that have allowed us to perform over 1,000 hours of service in this past year alone. We frequently volunteer at the Freestore Foodbank to assemble food packages for children of low-income families, at Read Around the World to mentor children at the Wesley Chapel Mission Center, and the Center for Courageous Kids where we supervise, guide and provide a fun, engaging environment for children with diseases. Each weekend they host a different disease category and we come and devote our entire weekends to helping children forget about the hardships they face day to day. It is a great cause that has allowed us to build lifelong relationships with these families and make a difference in their lives. Along with this we have volunteered at the Queen Bee Marathon, hosted district rallies where other CKI groups from different colleges came together to perform Large Scale Service Projects in the Cincinnati community, and have volunteered at the SPCA, Habitat for Humanity, Matthews 25 Ministries, Cincy Cleanup and more.
As president, I have increased membership by 500%, and helped our organization raise over $2,000 for neonatal tetanus vaccinations worldwide. I have led the team in these efforts in addition to providing several fellowship, leadership, and service opportunities locally, statewide and nationally through different conferences and group collaborations. As a leader, I have truly learned the skills of cooperation, collaboration, communication, and motivation and learned to pass these on to make others both great community leaders and global citizens. This next semester we are leading a community development program to implement a playground at an underprivileged school in Cincinnati. We have applied for funding and will be using these funds to purchase playground equipment and work with community partners to accomplish our goal. It is a tasking endeavor, but with the hard work and enthusiasm that our group demonstrates, we will be able to accomplish this goal. Hellen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” This is why our group has lead endeavors to engage high school students in the Cincinnati area through building Key Clubs. Key Club is the high school level of CKI and there are currently none in Cincinnati. We have been working with advisors and schools to implement this club so that we can spread service throughout the community and make students better leaders and citizens. I have already started this club at my hometown high school and next year Key Club at Anna High School will officially start holding meetings. I look forward to mentoring them and guiding them to both contribute and give back to their community.
In addition, last spring I volunteered twice a week at Santa Maria’s Community Service Inc. for a class called Service Learning in Spanish, where I was able to have a personal impact in the Price Hill community’s Hispanic immigrant population. This opportunity has allowed me to give underprivileged individuals access to healthcare resources that they would not have been able to obtain due to language barriers. At Santa Maria’s, I was the only volunteer that could speak Spanish. I took on many responsibilities and served as a translator of important documents, filled questionnaires in the database, secured financial assistance for medical bills and more. Loving the opportunity, I volunteered as often as I could. I guided and lead a group of individuals through 5k training and I helped organize and run the health fairs that Santa Maria has held in the Price Hill community for the past two years. I also lead the development of a pamphlet that guides healthy eating and lifestyles directed towards the Hispanic community to maintain a healthy heart. This summer I will start an internship as a volunteer at the Good Samaritan Health Clinic as patient-physician interpreter. I am overly enthusiastic to embark on this endeavor to alleviate healthcare barriers and improve the treatment of individuals.
I will continue giving and serving throughout my life to enact change and make a difference in the lives of others. After graduation I will attend medical school to obtain my MD/PhD, so that I can become an urologist and eventually a hospital director, where I will save lives and provide the best healthcare policies and regulations possible. Life is about helping one another and spreading love. Each day I go out of my way to help someone in need. I hope I can inspire others to do the same so that they can improve their community and piece it back together when it falls apart.