The National Civics Bee
Local Competition, Harrisburg, PA 2023
Going the Extra Miles developed from my experience participating in the 2023 National Civics Bee competition. This comprehensive national competition was open to participants in grades 6-8. To qualify for the competition, each student was to submit an essay on a specific topic. If your essay was selected, you then qualified to compete in the local competition where you would demonstrate civic knowledge by answering questions, and delivering a persuasive speech about the ideas presented in your essay. This competition proved to be an invaluable experience for me.
For the 2023 civics essay, participants were tasked with identifying and resolving a community issue. I chose to tackle the decline in volunteerism affecting our neighborhoods. The constant news reports of help shortages, from the local fire department to the animal shelter, caught my attention. Having always found joy in assisting at my church and school, I wondered why other kids weren't engaged? What was causing the drop in adult involvement? It was evident to me that our youth had become distracted by cell phones and video games. If we could get much younger kids engaged in service early, we could develop the next generation of community volunteers. I proposed my solution - integrating "fun theory" into volunteer projects to engage young minds to help improve the long-term goal of boosting volunteer participation rates.
My ‘fun theory’ essay was recognized as one of the best in South Central Pennsylvania, earning me a spot in the local competition. However, while I came close to advancing to the state level, it would not be until 2024 when I competed again (and yes, with an entirely new essay idea) that I secured second place at the local competition, allowing me to move to the state championship. This past June, I proudly achieved eleventh in the state competition. My thought was that if the only thing that brought me down in the competition was my lack of very specific knowledge on constitutional clauses, I could still make my innovative essay idea a reality. So my organization was born. Thanks to Kolsch, and my original goal of creating a nonprofit in his memory, I merged my civics bee essay ideas to build something bigger.
