Thursday, June 18, 2015

Meet Our Summer Interns: Ashley

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Hello readers, my name is Ashley Salazar and I am going to tell you about whom I am, what I love, and my exciting plans for this summer. Lets start with who I am and a little about myself. I am a seventeen-year-old girl who was born and raised in Long Beach, California. Growing up was amazing with my big loving family, we were all so close. I attended Valley Christian Schools all my life, and have made such great memories and friends through that community. My freshman year of high school I experienced the loss of my brother Jason. My family and I were very distraught and heartbroken. Although I loss one of my best friends, and it made me weak, but I was able to build a strong relationship with The Lord and I am so grateful for that.
            As a girl there is a lot of things that I am passionate about like shopping, cosmetology, and consistent Netflix movie nights. But, in my sophomore year of high school I experienced this thing that people liked to do in their free time called volunteering. I knew it had something to do with helping people, but I wasn’t entirely sure of what it consisted of. My first time volunteering was at the Long Beach Rescue Mission in downtown. I absolutely fell in love with helping people and I felt like God had called me down to the mission for a reason; to find what I love to do. What I love about volunteering with people and others in my community, is at the end of the day, seeing everything we have accomplished, and most importantly, seeing everyone with a smile on their face.
            Volunteering led me to join a class through my school called Service-Leadership which, in summary, is a class where every Wednesday, groups of students go out into the community and volunteer with different organizations, and that is how I came to know Kingdom Causes Bellflower. I have been volunteering with Kingdom Causes ever since (two years now) and I have developed great relationships with the employees here. I later discovered that they offer summer internship opportunities for high school graduates! I was so excited because I had recently decided that I wanted to go into Social Working and get my degree in it, so I thought this was absolutely God's calling for me to be a part of this organization.  I interviewed, and am thrilled to have been selected as an intern! I am going to be the intern involved with Homeless Outreach and Our Place Housing Solutions. I am so incredibly excited for this summer’s internship and I cannot wait to see what God has to in store for me this summer.

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