For a long time I was content with staying in Clinton, New York. Why would anyone ever want leave upstate New York?!

Then, I began to live in and visit other parts of the United States, and meet and befriend people from other places. Specifically, my experience coordinating Project SHINE, where college students tutored refugees and immigrants in English and helped them prepare for their citizenship exam, influenced me the most. I met people from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bosnia, Somolia and so many other places that used to seem so foreign to me. Now, I have friends from these places, and I want to see all of them!

But, I must start somewhere, right? I didn't want to simply be a tourist; I wanted to meet real people and experience a culture other than my own. I figured the best way to do this was to volunteer, so I will be going to Rwanda in July to teach at an orphanage for two weeks. I know that I will surely benefit from the experience more than the children in the orphanage will. I'm not ignorant in thinking that I'm there to "help" other people; I'm there to learn from the Rwandese people and I hope they learn a little something from me in return.

CHECK OUT http://www.volunteer.org.nz/rwanda/ TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT I'LL BE DOING.

I hope you'll support me in this trip! If you'd like to donate any money, it will go towards my airfare and my application fee. If you'd like to designate money for school supplies for the orphanage, let me know and I'll be sure to do that. Finally, the orphanage does not have many supplies for teaching or playing, so if you'd like to donate school supplies yourself, you may send anything from pencils to English-French dictionaries to me and I'll get them to the orphanage.

Simply click on the word "donate" on the left side of this page if you'd like to make a donation towards my trip.

THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP!