Jenny was born in 1989 to Salvadorian immigrant parents in Boston, Massachusetts. She enjoys going to Boston Latin School, her life outside of school includes her family and church. She goes to mass every Sunday and participates in youth groups. Jenny has two younger sisters, of whom she took charge while her parents worked full time jobs, and sometimes extra part time ones. She lived in a few cities around Boston before actually staying and the Boston Public School system has changed her life. While in Boston, she began to see the opportunities lingering straight ahead, she became more aware of where she wanted her life to go.
Her original intention was to become rich and assume a career that would bring in a high income, so then she could have anything fulfill her parents’ dreams. Slowly, through hard work, her family started having a bit more money and could afford to go on trips to visit their family in their native country. Immediately she fell in love with everything it had to offer. Or so she thought, until she was able to see the other side. The side where the government steals from the poor and its corrupted officials make life worse for the common citizen. The side where people were just making barely enough to survive, parents worked just to keep the daily bread, kids begging for food; never had she seen such a thing. The idea of poverty existed but never did it occur to her she would see it at her feet. It was a slap in the face; and it struck hard. In these people were the images of her parents, she saw the hope that one day this misery would end. She saw that throughout the hardships, these people are still grateful for what they have. It made her feel self- centered, as if everything was about her and what she wanted, about how much money she can spend without ever running out. It was shameful. She felt she was robbing these people of a better life. She wanted to give these people everything she had; to give them a world in which they did not have to worry about not having enough.
She started participating in church because she felt the need to help herself first in order to understand people better, especially the people that had so much faith in God yet barely made ends meet. Thoughts about becoming a missionary crossed her mind, but realized nobody pays attention to them; they are considered a nuisance to the elite of the world. Her goal was then settled. Her plan was to become a politician, the person on TV, the one making speeches, proposing laws made by the public, the person working for the people as a whole and not just the upper class. She does not want to be the hero or glorified because every good thing has its bad side, she wants to be a help, a fighter along with these people. Their pain will be hers and at every downfall she will be there to get right back up again. She wants to be able to give them the hope that there will be a better tomorrow.
Experiencing all this made her realize that she wants to work with people. She wants to work for them and that public service is the best thing out there for her. There are many ways in which she can help. Politics and government is just a more appropriate way to reach her goal with an impact on the world, a way she can influence and unite people. She may not become a doctor or a lawyer and make millions in her lifetime, as her parents told her to, but in reality she feels she will be making more. She will put a genuine smile on everyone’s face and let them know that the world is a place for everyone, and that we should all be able to live in it fairly.
Through the Ward Fellowship, she is learning many new things about how the system works. It has many services for the common citizens. The officers let the working class people know that their tax money is not being spent on costly goods for the upper class. She wants to travel the world and see all the beautiful places it holds. To see all the beautiful wonders of the world. To see the sunrise in a small third world village and see the mystery of a simple glimpse in the eye of a people who know that the world is now theirs.
This Summer Jenny’s sponsor is Inspector General Greg Sullivan.