“ASPIRA has made me a stronger person, and has provided me with many networking opportunities, both personal and work-related. The organization has encouraged me to never doubt myself, believe in my abilities, and seize opportunities as they present themselves.”
2008 High School Graduate, and currently a junior at Barnard College (Class of 2012)
As a freshman in high school, I felt isolated and a minority in a school where there were racial disparities. It was a new feeling I was not closely familiar with coming from a predominantly Latino community in Queens, New York. For me, ASPIRA’s presence during my high school career created a safe space, community, and a home. As new members joined, and former members graduated, ASPIRA always created a sense of family and bond throughout the years. It created a place for students with common interests in Latino culture, community service, and leadership to come together.
While a High School member, I serve as my school’s club secretary, and eventually club president. While President I also served as the chairperson for the ASPIRA Club Federation (ACF), where I served on the committee board as liaison between students and staff, students, and programs, and facilitated student meetings. In addition to my elected positions, I volunteered with fellow Aspirantes at a day care center and soup kitchen. We have helped organize city events geared towards students. We also walked in the March for AIDS in New York, and collected cans for food banks as part of ASPIRA’s annual Comite Noviembre event.
I have always been a giving person, and very involved, but ASPIRA encouraged me to look at community service in a different way. ASPIRA gave me the push to be someone more than a follower and serve, but be someone who can create, invent, innovate, lead, inspire, and motivate. Giving back is important to the community, and ASPIRA is an organization that always remembers its community, and understands the importance to give back to that community.
As a part of the ASPIRA community, the organization has made me a stronger person, and has provided me with many networking opportunities, both personal and work-related. The organization has encouraged me to never doubt myself, believe in my abilities, and seize opportunities as they present themselves. So far, I have never had to go out and look for work, but the jobs have come to me.
The staff at ASPRIA taught me that as a leader, it is important to choose battles and opportunities worth your personal investment; I have become a more objective and analytical person which have helped me make better decisions in different situations. Aspirantes are strong and valuable individuals who want something better for people around themselves and their communities. A community, not defined by geography or broken up by differences – a way I once viewed communities- but a community built on love strength and communication. Through these building blocks, ASPIRA is able to reach out and better the members of their communities.
As the Leadership Development Specialist for ASPIRA, I believe that love, strength, and communication are deeply engrained in the office, and create an environment where we care about others and want to serve members in our community, and make progress as an organization. ASPIRA tries to give back, and teach us to give back as well.
No matter how professional or educated I get, success is absolutely worthless if I do not come back and give back to those who believe in me, and those that are trying to be more for their community. Everyone’s experience with ASPIRA will be different from mine because no one person will make the exact decisions I did, but for each individual ASPIRA will be family and leadership.