Congratulations to the 2012 RHA High School Senior Scholarship Award winners: Megan Carpenter, Garrett Celestin, and Caroline Mucho. All three of this year’s winners attend Los Al High and had grade point averages over 4.0.
Much goes into the RHA Scholarship application process and it includes a 1000 word essay on a topic selected by the Scholarship Committee. This year’s winning essay by Garrett Celestin is below.
Thanks to all of our entrants and most of all to our committee of judges who worked their ways through the applications and came out with our winners.
How I Would Make Rossmoor a Better Place to Live
by Garrett Celestin
Rossmoor is much more than just a neighborhood to me; Rossmoor is a home. It is where my grandparents raised my mom and put her through the same elementary, middle, and high school as my parents put me through. It is where my grandparents live on the same street and my uncle, aunt, and four cousins on the other side of the block. It is the community that I grew up in where personal safety was never a concern and it has been an enriching community of parks, schools and social gatherings. Rossmoor is my home.
As is evidenced by the fact that so much of my family decided to live in Rossmoor, we think it is an incredible place to live. Since my mom was a child, the community has undergone some amazing improvements, including the development of our parks and schools, and community activities such as movie nights that bring the members of this town even closer together. However, there are still some improvements that could be made.
First, Rossmoor would greatly benefit from a FaceBook page. The current generation is very into social media. The best way to catch people’s attention is through FaceBook. By creating a page, people would be able to stay updated on the current happenings in Rossmoor. It would also be significantly easier to organize fundraising and community service projects through the FaceBook page. Many students are interested in doing community service projects, but do not know what they should become involved in. By publishing a list of some worthy causes or by organizing certain dates that all members of the community are invited to help with a certain project, we could get more people involved in helping others.
One problem I have noticed in Rossmoor is that there is at times a lack of the neighborly camaraderie that should be fostered. Although it is clear that Rossmoor is trying to fix this problem (through picnics, movie nights, and other such activities), I believe that more could be done. I think that block parties would be a very good way to make Rossmoor a more close-knit community. Farmers’ Markets would also be a great addition. Some new traditions would also bond Rossmoor closer together. For example, we could have block parties on the Fourth of July, decorate a haunted house on Halloween, or hold food banks on the last Friday of every month.
Rossmoor is a wonderful community that I am so proud to call my home. However, I think that these small changes would make it an even better place to live.
