by Kelly Seganish ’19

In high school the stereotypical thing for students to do is take the sport that they played when they were younger, and carry out playing it throughout high school. Whether it be soccer, hockey, or even football, there is usually one sport that a student becomes passionate about, and ends up playing in high school.

In my situation, I was heavily involved in field hockey. I had played the sport since I was in the fifth grade, but could no longer play by the time tenth grade came around. I never tried out for field hockey when I was a freshman because I had some major knee problems. I eventually got over my knee problems, and slowly got back into playing field hockey. During my sophomore year, I decided to try out. During the beginning of the last day of tryouts, I was running across the baseball field and fell and rolled my ankle in a hole. Instead of telling an adult what had just happened, I just kept running on it for three more hours, which resulted in a sprain. My sprained ankle ended up taking me out for the whole season, which made me lose motivation to continue playing.

I did not just want to stop any form of activity, so by the time my ankle was strong enough to walk over uneven ground, I continued to volunteer at the horse rescue that I had joined about two years prior to spraining my ankle. At first I was volunteering for the SSL hours. But as I continued doing volunteer work, I realized that I really enjoy knowing that I am making a positive impact on my community. Since the tenth grade I have volunteered at many different organizations — from farms, to vet offices, to an adult daycare center. Over the past five years of doing volunteer work, I have completed more than 1,000 service hours. It is more rewarding for me to see an impact being made on people and others around me than it would have been playing field hockey.