I was born on September 11, 2001, as the second tower came crumbling down, on an otherwise ordinary morning in New York City.

Ever since I was able to comprehend the events of that horrific day, I have always tried to understand why things like this happen and why it happened just two hours away from my home. Despite believing that a certain type of malice must exist in the world for an event like this to occur, I realized that only a handful of people perpetrated that violence. Generalizations and stereotypes about people of any religious or ethnic group are detrimental and ultimately destructive to our society. Rather than create division, I learned how important it is to help bring people together.

In the fifth grade, I won the Connecticut Higher Education Trust "Dream Big" essay contest, which asked students to respond to the question: What would you do after college that could change the world? Naturally, I came back to September 11th, my day of celebration and a day of mourning. I wrote that, after college, I wanted to create a foundation that would help to build bridges and encourage peaceful interaction between Americans, and those inhabiting Middle Eastern and other Islamic nations. This was the dream of a girl who tried to see the good in all people, who wanted to understand why 9/11 happened, and who was eager to promote peace and compassion in the face of adversity.

Now that I am older, I try to live out this "big dream" in small acts. Back home I was a member of my church's youth group, where the young adults of the parish came together to discuss their faith, and organize service projects to aid our parish, surrounding, and global communities. A couple of years back, I participated in a project that helped collect used furniture, clothing, and household items for a Syrian family that had just immigrated here. Syrian refugees were quite a controversial topic in the political sphere at this time, but my peers and I moved past any political opinions we had prior, to perform our Christian duty of helping those in need. In addition, one of my favorite projects to have participated in was the sponsorship of a child from Guatemala. Every month we contributed donations and wrote letters to Iris, the six-year-old girl we were sponsoring. Iris lived in a dilapidated village that did not educate young girls and women; the money we collected was to help her get the education she rightly deserved. These two examples stood out in my mind as small ways I worked to live out that dream I had as an elementary schooler, as well as the kinds of things I hope to do more of in the future.

The morals I have learned from my family and Christian faith have fostered the values I hold today: acceptance and respect for all people, as well as an obligation to help those in physical and spiritual need. I am proud to be part of a community like Villanova, full of young, innovative, and diverse minds, fostering the mission of inclusion in little ways every day.