Caroline Chouinard is kicking off her senior year at Armijo High School. She is a volunteer as well as an excellent student. When she is away from her books, she teaches and assists in providing dance lessons for children and finds it fulfilling to pass on knowledge she has, especially when it is physical ability. “This is because it’s amazing to visually see progress on someone’s body, and understand the mental evolution they have gone through that has accompanied their gaining in ability” Chouinard said. “Also, dance is a very ‘watch and learn’ sport, and I would argue that one thing that places it smack in between art and sport is its characteristic that body type and pre-existing skill that has little to do with how successful one is in dance. It is more about the effort one puts in and the evolved skills they develop.”

All the passion from Chouinard could come through her years of experience. She explained her journey. “I started dancing when I was two and a half years old. Yes, that totals about 15 years of dance. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t a dancer, and I think it’s been a conscious choice all these years to maintain dancing as a part of my identity. I have continuously fallen and re-fallen in love with the sport/art and I believe it will always be an outlet, an inspiration source, a passion, and a release for me, to whatever extent I’m able to dedicate my time to it.”

Even though dancing is such a big part of her life, she still finds time to give back to her community in other ways. Community service is a big part of her fundamental beliefs and philosophies on how one should live their life, and how she wants to live hers. Chouinard said, “I remember crying to myself when I was 12 because I was told I needed to be 18 years old to volunteer at any animal shelters. Fast forward to my high school career. I’ve done many day long events and volunteer opportunities. All of my freshman year I volunteered as a mother’s helper for my neighbor, and my promise came true when I organized, from scratch, Walk Pets 4 Pets, a volunteer walk in the spring where people walked their dogs and spent time as a community of people who care for the well-being of animals, all while raising money for those pets who aren’t so fortunate.”

Chouinard finds it important to not only help those in need, but also bringing those needs to the attention to people. A lot of her most passionate projects (Walk Pets 4 Pets, Around the World Club and more) have to do with the educational aspect of charity work. She focuses on areas of community service that may not be obviously needy so, instead of helping the poor and elderly, she chooses to help forgotten animals in shelters and people suffering different issues.

Americans tend to donate more to a fellow Americans who just don’t have enough money than to Venezuelan Aid funds and the many humanitarian crises this has caused. Chouinard uses this pattern to help encourage local help.

Her most recent project was a Coastal Cleanup on September 16. All across California people were cleaning up trash in their local parks, beaches, waterfronts and more. Chouinard orchestrated a local effort at the Martinez Marina. She had participated before and did it again this year as a representative of Helping Hands.

While she is often finding ways to help local people, she also participates in weekly meetings of The Around the World Club. She is an officer for the club where they vote on one country/area in the world that has a specific need and fundraises money to donate. Her Walk Pets 4 Pets project is happening again this spring and she would love for a team of juniors to join her team and participate in the process and to inherit the project next year.

If anyone is interested in being handed a hands-on rewarding CAS project idea with the basics laid out, contact Chouinard at [email protected] or go to Mrs. Plecenik’s (F7 at lunch on Monday).