In the summer before I entered 10th grade, I applied for a position at the Youth Newsletter of the Red Cross. To my surprise, I won the position, working under the leader of the Newsletter, a senior soon to enter college. It was my first real assignment on someone else's staff, and I took the role more seriously than the role took me.
After a few weeks of working there, my superior made me aware that the North Texas Red Cross was running a fundraiser to raise awareness for sickle cell. Eager to help out as much as possible, I agreed to man a chapter of the fundraiser for my small school and began recruiting a team. Despite my efforts to sign up students, however, little support came, with only three to five of my friends agreeing to support me. After miscommunications and scheduling issues, that support mostly fell through by the second week. Group chats went quiet. Names dropped off shared documents. The team, in the end, was me and a printed sign-up sheet with a lot of empty rows.
It was up to me to make flyers, canvass, cold call, and advertise for the Red Cross's cause, a prospect that felt terrifying for a socially awkward 14-year-old. Less than a week later, frustrated at my own lack of action, I resolved to make good on my promise to the Red Cross and work towards the fundraiser. I got to work making custom posters, canvassing all of the homes in a two-mile radius and near my school, and keeping contact by texting and emailing for donations.
Some doors did not open. Some did. Some people signed cheques on the spot, and some of them wanted to hear the whole story of what sickle cell disease actually was before they would consider giving anything, and I learned to tell that story on the porch, quickly and clearly, without embarrassing myself. The rejections were the education. The yeses were what I remembered on the walk home.
Though not all my attempts were successful, I certainly made a splash. In total, I raised $1,320 in the name of my school (hence the certificate), beating out several larger teams to earn the most amount of money in under a few weeks. Few people know that I achieved this feat. Despite the fact that I was eventually cut from the Youth Newsletter staff and won only a few other awards, I remain proud of it nonetheless.
Some wins arrive with cameras. Others arrive with a folded envelope and a name written in someone's handwriting on the outside of it. I have grown very fond of the second kind.
