I have strengthened my community in three key ways, through my involvement in school, volunteering in the community, and passing the importance of volunteering on to the younger scouts. The improvement of my leadership skills, and character base, has assisted me in aiding many endeavors that I get involved with at school, and community, including; many DECA based projects, that I am involved with, and as the one of the captains of football and baseball teams. The Hallam community is rebuilt now, including the Hallam Church. Hallam is a small town of a little over 500 people.

Hands On Disaster Response (HODR), a volunteer-driven 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, has announced the launch of a volunteer project to help the devastated Pisco province of Peru recover and rebuild. A magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck Peru on August 15, killing over 500 people, interrupting schools, disrupting livelihoods, and destroying over 40,000 homes. A HODR assessment team arrived in Peru August 20, 2007. After touring some of the region’s hardest-hit towns and populations, the team has identified a community where it can have a maximum impact.

The community that I help is in Grifton, NC. It is a relatively poor area that has a lot of old houses that are not in normal living conditions. They were also hit by strong flooding a few years ago.

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2004 myself, along with two fellow students, created the Disaster Relief Club at our high school to help generate aid to be sent for the relief effort. We held club meetings after school to propose various ways to raise money to be sent to the areas affected by the hurricanes. We developed the idea to hold a "battle of the bands" of sorts at our high school to help raise money and awareness. We asked local rock bands and musical acts to play in our school auditorium for a night of music and fun.

I live in a small town of Fernley, nv. Last January the canals broke causing a major flood around 3 a.m. although there were no deaths reported it was hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and over 2,000 people were out of their homes for months or lost their homes completely. the flood came up to my backyard lucky for my family and i. that day worked 14 hours at the evacuation center (fernley high school) giving donations, picking up donations, getting reports, offering support, organizing everyone, taking care of kids and animals, and anything else i could possibly do.