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Attorneys presenting scholarship award to student in Arlington Heights, IL

We are excited to announce the winner of the first annual Law Offices of R.F. Wittmeyer, Ltd. Illinois Community Service Scholarship Winner: Celia Huerta!

Celia’s passion for and interest in her community was immediately apparent. The video explained Celia’s enthusiasm for community service in a creative, thoughtful manner. Join us in congratulating Celia! We are proud to help a young member of the Kingston community to continue her dreams of pursuing an education in nursing.

Here are a few words Celia had to say about receiving the scholarship:

Thank you so much. It’s an honor to have received this scholarship! I couldn’t have picked a better one to apply for. Community service is such an easy topic for me to talk about since I love helping people and making a change. To have been awarded a community service scholarship means all the effort I’ve put forward towards my community and others has came back to thank me. Thank you for picking me for this scholarship!

Finally, thank you to all of our applicants. Please check back next year to apply again.

Even though I’m from a smaller community than most, I still make big impacts. I’ve been helping others and volunteering my time for years. I’m a very helpful member to my community. I’m always involved in volunteering activities. I often get asked why I volunteer so much– I never really know how to answer it. I don’t see volunteering as a chore; I see it more as making a difference in this small community. There needs to be a leader in order to have followers, which is what I’m doing. I’m trying to be the impact/leader figure this community needs. I believe the more often I volunteer and continue to help others it will rub off on my friends and the people of my community to get them more involved. I’ve always dreamt of becoming a nurse, the way they’re looked up to and how their daily job is helping others is a goal of mine. A nurse’s job is to put others first before themselves, which is what I was taught at a young age. This pushes me to strive and continue on by doing what I can to help my community. As I will grow out of girl scouts and soon will no longer be in high school clubs anymore, I’ll still be able to help the community in another way.

I’ve been helping others since the age of five. This was the age I started girl scouts. I’ve grown a lot and seen many of my troop members leave, but I still continue to be involved in my troop. It’s been twelve years since I first started, now I’m the leader of my troop, organizing events by myself and planning activities for the younger scouts. I’ve been volunteering at Walcamp for many years, which is where they have me set up games for kids and help serve/make people food. I help the PTO fundraise for Market day by organizing customers orders, checking quality and to make sure each order is correct. The first event I set up by myself as a troop leader for the younger scouts was called Pioneer days. I told each scout what they’ll be working and also taught them how to play/explain their station. Due to girl scouts, I’ve received recognition from my community members, many community service hours and even engaged more in my community by joining clubs at school. I joined student council in the sixth grade and stuck with it all throughout my years of high school. Student council showed me how to be more involved with my school, as well as with the members in it. Being in student council involves teamwork, which is one of the traits that girls scouts gave me. Nothing can be done with just one person. The whole student council team has to be on board and ready to work with the group. I love being engaged with my school, my favorite activity we did yearly in student council was homecoming week. As a member of student council, I was able to pick out the themes for homecoming and prom, decorated the halls, created floats to be shown off in a parade, set up multiple fundraisers/food drives for our school and local community members in need of help and worked concessions for any school related games.

I soon started to get involved in impact club, which the main goal was to impact the community in a positive way for the better. We fundraised for a local dog/cat shelter named tails by hosting a car wash. We set up food and clothes drives for members of the community who couldn’t afford these extra costs during the harsh winters and helped stock up the food pantry. I was also involved in DCPS, which focused on how drugs are bad and taught that this is a drug-free community. We went to each school in my town to spread awareness by showing videos and presentations of the effects of drugs and how harmful they are. While being a full-time athlete, I’ve made time to be a wrestling statistician/team manager for three years. I volunteer at the middle school wrestling meets and for high school, I take stats of each individual wrestler. During tournaments, I fill out their brackets for them so they know when they wrestle next and who they wrestle. I’m typically by myself and stay at these meets for 3-5 hours. Being a stat girl taught me to have good time management skills, a strong work ethic, to be dedicated and responsible.

Putting others first before myself is the best mentality I could’ve set for myself. I volunteer my time so often and help others because it makes me see the change I’ve been trying to make. I’ve noticed those who are always helping others and being positive are the ones who are making an impact and becoming better people, which lead me to believe why I’m closer to achieving my goals every day. I’m CPR certified and a licensed CNA. This scholarship will help reduce my college fund costs so I can soon go on by furthering my nursing career and continue to help people in the process of reaching my goals.

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