Orange County teens are no strangers to community
service, serving locally, and across the globe.
Some get involved through church, others through
clubs and charities, still others to meet the
requisite 40 hours of service for graduation
from high school. Coast Kids is proud of our
youth –and pleased to share these profiles
of the leaders of tomorrow. We hope they will
inspire you, and your kids, to get involved
and make a difference.
Dane Johnston
Senior, Corona Del Mar High School
Interests include swimming and water polo
Community
Service
Deacon at St. Mark Presbyterian Church, CDM
Peer Assistance League, Hoag Hospital
Candy Striper President
Serving Through Church & School
Being
the only high school-aged deacon, Dane is in charge
of working with the
St. Mark
Youth Group to manage and implement
philanthropic programs, including assembling and distributing
Easter baskets to Social Service agencies
throughout
the OC. He also is involved in leading
the group of 150 Candy Stripers at
Hoag,
and
is a member of the Peer Assistance
League at CDM
which schedules various community leaders
to speak, and provides mentoring to
students. Dane says that working with adults in
a service capacity has helped him become
more mature,
more outgoing, and taught him to have
a sense of responsibility to the community
- not
just
to himself. Service work has helped
him improve his communication skills, especially
speaking
in front of groups, and to be dependable.
Advice
to Other Students Planning to Get Involved: “There
are so many opportunities to help people
in our community ... you just need to find
a cause
you are passionate about ... and be ready,
because other people are depending on you.”
Kendra Eaton
Senior, Mater Dei High School
Interests include travel, reading
and yoga
Community
Service
Operation Smile Club, Lighthouse
Community Center, Crayons for a
Cause
Serving Through Clubs & School
After
being inspired by the work of Operation Smile, a non-profit
which
provides oral
surgeries for cleft lip and palate
repair to impoverished
children and adults, Kendra was
inspired to form an Operation
Smile
club at
her school. Through her leadership,
the club
has grown
to nearly 150 members and has
raised thousands of dollars to help offset
costs of surgeries.
Kendra was selected to accompany
a medical team to Vietnam for
two weeks
this past
summer. While there, Kendra was
successful in comforting
patients and families, both pre-
and post-operatively, and was
deeply moved
by her experience. She
also participates in tutoring
younger students through Lighthouse Community
Center; and
in
involved in Crayons for a Cause,
collecting used crayons from
restaurants for after-school
programs throughout California.
How
Service Has Changed You: Kendra
faced the service-hour
requirement
that all
high schoolers
do. After “doing hours
randomly,” Kendra
found service projects that were “truly
meaningful” to her. Now,
she has exceeded her requirement
by hundreds of hours, and
participates because she enjoys
helping.
Advice to Other Students Planning
to Get Involved: If you have
an idea you
believe
in, you should “pursue
it, and be persistent.... It should be something
you are passionate about.”
Jillian Wertheim
Junior, Sage Hill High School
Interests include music, piano,
dance, spending time with friends
and family
Community
Service
African orphanage; Newport
Beach community -Girl Scout
Gold Award
Focused on the
Environment
Serving Through Girl Scouts & Family
Jillian
spent five weeks on the west coast of Africa,
in
Ghana,
as a foreign-exchange
student with a community
service twist – she
worked at a local orphanage,
teaching reading and math,
and helping with improvement
projects.
Currently her focus is
on her school and community,
encouraging them to adopt
environmentally-conscious
practices, as she works
towards
earning the
Gold Award, the highest
award possible in Girl
Scouts.
How
Service Has Changed You: Coming from
a family
of Girl
Scouts, serving
the
community is not new
for Jillian. She says that
coming home from Ghana
was like
experiencing “reverse
culture shock...you look
at all the stuff we have,
and then think about
what is really of
value to you.” She
came to a realization
that she can’t
change the world, but
that doesn’t
mean she shouldn’t
do her part to help.
Her travels have fueled
her
interest in learning
about other cultures,
and she is considering
studying anthropology
in
college.
Advice
to Other Students Planning to
Get Involved: “Be
sure to choose something
you are really passionate
about – you shouldn’t
go into it [service work]
begrudgingly.”
Know
an exceptional, service-minded
youth who should
be considered for
this profile? Email our
editor at carrie@coastkids.com
