YouthWorks Spotlight: Kendra Welborn

For six weeks each summer, GHCC welcomes several young people to our office through the YouthWorks program. This year, our Youth Workers have impressed us with their tireless efforts and, perhaps most importantly, prepared us for our impending office move/reorganization.

Meet Kendra, one of two Youth Workers assigned to perform general duties around the office at GHCC.

Hello everyone. My name is Kendra Welborn and I will be attending Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) in August, for dance, for my freshman year of high school. This will be an exciting journey for me because this is a really wonderful position I have been put in. Before I could even think about going to high school, I attended Leith Walk as my elementary school and Mt. Royal as my middle school. These two schools prepared me in the best way possible for everything.

Looking back on how far I have come, being put in these great positions comes from my attitude. My attitude is one where I won't give up. I'm very determined to achieve anything that I put my mind to. I work very hard and I try to finish the job no matter what. Having a friendly, nice, and caring attitude also contributed. I love going to new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new things, but when I move on to these new people and places, I don't want to forget about the old people and places. This is one thing I could never do.

For the summer this year I am working at Greater Homewood Community Corporation. I had been thinking about whether or not I would receive a summer job this year with the economy and all, but things worked out fine. I'm hoping to become more independent now that I am a high school student-to-be. Here at GHCC, I work on tasks that employees may assign me. These tasks can be filing papers, using the copy machine, or working on the computer. In the future I plan on being a computer engineer, so this is a great place to begin a first job.

I have a lot of things that I like to do in my spare time. I like to dance, listen to music, go to the park, swim, skate, and hang out with my family. The one thing I really like to do is skate. I like to roller skate and I usually go with my cousins. This way I can hang with my family and skate at the same time. I also love to dance. For me, dancing is a way to have fun and, at the same time, learn all about a craft I'm interested in. Dance can also tie in with skating, when you're rolling around the skating rink, dancing can make it so much more fun!

Since I'm an only child I love to spend most of my time with my family wherever I go, especially to the park. Here at the park everyone is happy. My little cousins can run around and play, while my older cousins can talk and mingle with each other. Seeing the family together is what I love the most.

I currently live in the Harwood area. One thing I don't like about my neighborhood is the trash. Sometimes it's a lot of trash, then at other times it isn't. To improve this situation I think the neighbors could pitch in and help a little more. We could also come together as a group and have a block clean-up or add a trash can somewhere close where people could put their trash, and have the "No Littering" sign enforced a little more. We could also utilize the grassy lot that is closest to my neighborhood and make it more welcoming by adding some flowers or something to make it more attractive.

One thing that I do like is the convenience to the stores and bus lines. Not too far away from where I live, there is a bus line and a shopping center. My family also lives close to where I live. There are many pros and cons about where I live, but those are the main ones I think about. If I'm close to family and can find a couple of good things about my neighborhood, I'm okay.