The academic year finds Schuler Scholars working busily to prepare for entrance into the nation’s most selective colleges. With such a destination, free time may sound impossible, but it is what these students are doing outside of the classroom that is making them so unique among their peers.

             Schuler Scholar and WHS Senior Jessica Torres is just one such student who has not only been involved in such significant activities but has been an instigator of them. Jessica found herself in Brazil for three weeks last summer in what she deems a literally life-changing experience.

            The Schuler Foundation offered a program abroad with Global Leadership Adventures in which students spend three weeks in another country, meeting the people and being immersed in the culture. “I almost didn’t turn my application in, but I decided I had to get it done” said Jessica as she described how she just barely made the deadline by sliding the application under the door on the last day. “I didn’t think I would be chosen” she said. When she found out that she had been chosen she was thrilled to look upon such an experience as a reality. But the difficulty did not stop there. “I almost didn’t get my visa in time” she said as she told how her visa had arrived just four days before she was to leave; “it was a struggle, but everything happened for a reason”.

            While in Brazil, Jessica worked with children teaching them English, working on crafts and making jewelry. One of the more memorable activities that Jessica helped to organize was a wall mural that the students and children worked on together to symbolize cooperation and unity. Some of the student workers did not want the children to help with the mural because they thought the children might mess it up, but Jessica said, “You need to let them work on it because it is their project and [includes] their ideas, and they will be leaving their mark on it”. She told her fellow students that the work they were accomplishing was the work of the children too, “not just ours”.

            Jessica came home from Brazil with an excitement that she could not quell. “What inspired me was seeing a lot of children do something with their talent”. She was saddened by the realization that so many people do not do anything with their talent because they do not see that they have it. With this inspiration, Jessica decided that she had to do something in her own community to bring people together they way she came together with the children in Brazil. She loved the idea of a wall mural because it so visibly states the unity of the people who come together to make work on the project. With the help of the Schuler Foundation and the community, Jessica  started an art club and received the space and means to implement her desire to bring people together.

            Jessica says that she hopes this club will go far beyond the creation of a mural.  Her hope for the group is that they “continue [creating together] even after the mural is done”. When asked why she was doing this she said, “for myself: I want to be able to bring people into a group project, for others: I want to help give to people a sense of belonging”.