By CATHERINE PORTER
Although volunteering is often required for programs like National Honor Society or Bright Futures, students are rarely required to complete more than 75 hours throughout the course of their high school career. Kaitlin Cheatham, however, found a genuine passion for volunteering and logged 150 hours at Orlando Regional Medical Center and over 600 hours in total.
In addition to volunteering at ORMC every week, going to Kenya every summer for mission trips and assisting in an advance trauma life support course several times a year for the hospital, Cheatham also was President of Project X and a leader within the Writing Center.
“[My fondest memories from high school will be those from] Project X and the Writing Center. The community of students volunteering together and getting to know the custodians personally [through Project X] was a really special experience for me this year,” Cheatham said.
Her dedication to service helped Cheatham earn the Good Samaritan senior superlative, Fellowship of Christian Athletes Student Servant of the Year award as well as the President Obama’s Volunteer Service award.
“I like to share my gifts because there are other people in the world who are not as fortunate as I am, and I enjoy sharing what I have with others,” Cheatham said. “[Volunteering] is important because there are a lot of other cultures and people in the world, and by sharing what we have, we can learn about them and use our gifts to benefit them.”
In addition to dedicating herself to a life of service, Cheatham also used her studies as a way to pursue her passion within the medical field. Both of Cheatham’s parents are physicians, and she too hopes to work within the medical field as a pediatrician. Cheatham took an Advanced Placement-heavy course load, and also is a National Merit Finalist. Cheatham will attend Davidson College in the fall, where she will major in English with a Pre-med concentration.