Erin O’Keefe entered the Boston Latin School in the seventh grade in 1995, a scared young girl from Brighton. Throughout the six years of her attendance, she has put blood, sweat, and tears (as she and her fellow graduates are fond of saying) into her classes, and has grown quite a bit from the girl who entered BLS.
Erin received a generous full-tuition scholarship to Bryn Mawr College through the Posse Foundation. Although academics were her main focus throughout her Latin School career, she managed to find some time among the numerous science projects and English declamations to take part in activities that she loves. Erin was an active member of Politicus, a school discussion group where teens could express their opinions on current social and political issues. She was also the treasurer of the school’s Greek Cultural Society, as she has a passion for the Ancient Greek language, culture, and mythology. Most days, Erin could be found helping the younger students in the After School Tutoring Program.
However, the most amazing, educational, and spellbinding experience of her life was the five weeks she spent last summer in Greece. Living in a small, remote village far from the traditional tourists sights and performing manual labor for the benefit of the host families, Erin learned some of her most important life lessons. No amount of classroom lectures could have taught her how the cultural and language barrier is easily broken by a simple, kind smile. Encouraged by the success she encountered in this challenging cross-cultural experience, Erin hopes to study abroad one day.
In regards to the direction in which she will steer her life, Erin is uncertain. She hopes that in the setting of a small liberal arts college, she will have the opportunity to explore all her options. She would love to be an author one day, publishing many fictional works. Whether or not she makes a successful career out of her wild imagination, the one novel that she wants to complete in her lifetime is a hard-hitting anti-war novel.
In the most probable situation, publishers won’t be tripping over themselves to have the rights to produce her novels the second she graduates from college. Her summer spent at the BHA has stirred an old passion for public service. Erin has been quoted as staying that she is happiest when she is helping others. So before the big contract comes, Erin may pursue this interest in follow in the footsteps of many public servants that have gone before her.
Erin’s sponsor is Robert Trestan, the Director of Civil Rights of the Boston Housing Authority.