Youth in Sports

Every youth should have the full ability and opportunity to chase their goals. That opportunity may arise from testing the best of what you can do, or in the voices and hands of people who support you. For me, that’s the spirit behind a gold medal – the ability to be boundlessly supported.

Food Booth Fundraiser

In April 2023, after half a year of planning and preparation, I organized a team of local high school students to run a booth at a food festival called the Taste of China, held in downtown Cary, NC. The basic idea was to sell food from our cultures and donate all our earnings to a local youth sports team, while putting in money from our own pockets to buy materials and ingredients.

We first started out as a team of seven, but as we recruited more people by word of mouth and recruitment posters, we grew to a team of twenty.

In the months of planning, I put together a system of communication and working documents that detailed everybody’s roles and responsibilities, ranging between chef, cashier, helper, and promoter. These can be seen in my screenshots of my documents below. We used our connections with local businesses such as Liming’s Global Mart (a local Asian grocery store) to let us borrow portable gas stoves, foldable tables, cash registers, and a giant canopy tent, and donated to us cups, bowls, paper trays, napkins, and chopsticks. We made sure to ask for sustainable materials out of bamboo and paper.

What our planning for this food booth looked like, using shared Google Docs and constantly updating Spreadsheets.

Originally, the food festival was scheduled for an October 2022 date. Due to an incoming hurricane, it was rescheduled for April 2023. This gave us more time to plan.

On the day of the festival, me and three other team members showed up to the festival at 10 AM (the festival started in the afternoon) carrying the foundational materials to build our booth. As more of our people showed up with dispensers and tables from their own homes, our booth started looking more like an outdoors kitchen. The last of our team arrived with pre-made food and decorative banners. One of the coaches from the sports team even showed up and offered to set up a monitor displaying the team’s performances at competitions to our customers.

Our Kitchen SYNCH team by the end of the day of the food festival in April 2023.

Though it was very hectic, the festival ran smoothly and customers kept coming until we ran out of food, even as we adjusted prices multiple times. Some of our team members even brought their crochet creations to sell.

In the midst of laughter and sometimes chaos, we learned how to be organized, sanitary, and gained good customer service and financial planning skills. Many people reported back to me that they’d love to do this again.

By the end of the day, we fundraised $2500 for a local youth sports team, who later successfully qualified for the national competition at the novice level.

In September 2022, I volunteered at two collegiate football games to help the youth sports (from above) fundraise money. As part of a team comprised of young athletes, parents, and coaches, we were put to the task of taking orders and selling food to football fans.

After two days (16 hours) of service handling a food booth, we were able to raise $8k.

Varsity Pitcher

I started playing softball when I was 9, and have been playing from travel ball teams in Wilmington to Chapel Hill to now in Durham, where I play as the varsity pitcher for the school softball team. The team energy and spirit are positively contagious; I find myself uplifted as well, which is why I will always be playing softball until high school graduation. Even then, I will try to play softball in college, and as a coach for local middle or high school softball teams as my coaches did for theirs.

At my old high school, I volunteered with my softball team at the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) softball state championship game, held at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC)’s Anderson Softball Stadium. Instead of playing in the ballpark, we learned how to operate a game in the ballpark, behind-the-scenes. We scanned tickets at the door, announced the game over the loudspeakers, and oversaw each dugout during the game.

Dance

I started dancing at age 5, and grew up dancing ballet, modern, and jazz until I came to NCSSM. Every year, I dance in the Chapel Hill Ballet School’s flagship student recital. Bbecause dance is a universal art, I’ve come to make friends from all across the district, school, grades, dance experience, and backgrounds. When I go to college, I will continue this interest in dancing whenever I have time.

Taekwondo

Similarly to dance, I started my taekwondo journey at age 5. By the time middle school started, I had already gotten to my second-degree black belt. From learning to make friends with people I’ve never thought was possible to overcoming embarrassment to joining the prestigious demo team representing the artistic skills of our dojang, I’ve learned that everybody has their own special talent to bring to accomplish a goal, which is why teamwork and friendship are the keys to life.

My taekwondo experiences are one of pride and nostalgia; my friends and masters taught me discipline, hard work, and confidence at a young age, which has made me physically and mentally stronger today.