Tony- Motivated to Give Back

Hello, my name is Tony. I was raised in a family of four, including two sons, me being the oldest at 16. I am a current junior and am taking four AP classes. My goal is to get into medical school and become a general physician. I was inspired by the medical field after my mom had a surgery on her appendix during my freshmen year in high school. I was completely shocked by the news of my mother's surgery. My mother has always been there for me and she has always encouraged me to grow up and be the person she has always dreamed of being; a physician. During the next couple of days, my mom came home and my dad took great care of her. She suffered from abdominal pain after surgery, but other than that she said she felt better than before. I was really motivated after my mom's surgery and pleasant reaction that I started to look up on the Internet hospitals.I was particularly fond of SHARP Grossmont Hospital and ended up working there as a library cart volunteer on Saturday afternoons. After one month of the library cart, my partner asked my volunteer coordinator if she could have a new position in the hospital. Since the library cart cannot my run by one person only, my volunteer coordinator offered me the busiest position in the hospital, the main lobby. After a lot of thinking, I said yes.The purpose of the main lobby position is to greet and direct patients and visitors in the main lobby and respond to visitor requests for information. It didn't take long for me to be in love with this position. It has allowed me to talk to surgeons, doctors, patients, and of course, visitors. I loved it so much that I asked my coordinator if it was okay if I could volunteer overtime from 4 PM to 5PM, and start from 12 AM rather than 12:30 AM. As of 1/3/2014, I have a total of 375 hours of volunteering.The beginning of my junior year in high school has proved to be challenging. Other than being academically challenging, it was also very difficult to deal with the divorce of my parents. In February 2013, my mother was the only parent in the household other than my brother and me. She took care of us until late August 2013. It was during my second week of school that she said that she would be leaving the house and allowing my dad to take over. It wasn't the fact that my dad took over, it was that my mom couldn't handle it anymore. She didn't want to face my father, who was constantly asking to come back to where he belonged and disturbing her everywhere she was. However, before she left, she told me that her only goal, was for me to go to college and become successful. It hasn't changed since day one, and she wanted me to become the first in my family to be a college student. I used it as an impetus to finish junior year with a 4.0 GPA or higher and to get ready for college. I just want to make her and my dad proud of me after every sacrifice they had to make to allow me to be here in America.Thank you to A Bridge for Kids and my sponsor for helping me turn my dream into a reality!Tony received a $1,000 sponsorship in February, 2014!