Just in time for lunch, Natalie Dorokhina was born at 12:30PM at a hospital in Moscow on the first day of spring in 1990. Her official name, Natalya, which is also her mother’s name, was chosen by her father Mikhail, since at the time of registration her mother was going through surgery because of complications during birth. Nevertheless, soon enough both the newly born baby and the mother were safely tucked away in their three bedroom apartment in the Solnczevo district of Moscow.
There, Natalie lived among her friends and family until 2000, when, at ten years old, she moved four thousand miles away to Boston, Massachusetts, with her parents and older sister. In Boston, Natalie grew up and matured through her adolescent years and started to notice a growing passion for public service, government, and politics. She attended Boston Latin School starting in the ninth grade, and throughout her high school career has been involved in different organizations both in and out of school, all of which have dealt with community service. As a student council member and then president, she has been dedicated to helping the students at the Latin school to have their voices heard by the faculty, administration, and the rest of the community surrounding them. Student council also gave her the opportunity to become part of the Greater Boston Regional Student Advisory Council, on which she served as Recorder and Tri-chair, and the State Student Advisory Council. She has been involved in a community service group called Wolfpack Volunteers, which allowed her to participate in a number of volunteering events around the school and in her community. She managed to overcome her struggle with the rigorous academic curriculum at the Latin school and was accepted into the National Honors Society during the winter of her senior year.
All of these experiences, as well as a brief visit to Moscow during the summer of 2005, have shaped Natalie’s interest in public service. After revisiting her homeland as a young adult, she was able to observe different aspects of her old community in a way that was unattainable for her during her childhood. She quickly noticed that life was a long and unpromising below-the-poverty-line struggle for survival for a vast majority in the city and around it, as well as in other parts of the country. Of all the experiences that Natalie has had, her visit to Moscow that summer has produced one of the most significant impacts on her outlook on life. Her desire to help others has been developing ever since. She realized that although she may not have the power to help the distraught citizens of her homeland, she may eventually have enough experience to be able to aid people back in the United States in solving the pressing issues of the nation on either the local, state, or federal levels.
Upon her return to the United States, Natalie started researching and learning about different ways that she would be able to get involved in helping her community. She has volunteered at the Beth Israel Hospital in Longwood, helped with the organization of “The Walk from Obesity” event at the Harvard Medical School, and worked with a number of other students from different high schools in order to help students across her region and state vocalize the problems that their schools face and get on track toward resolving them. Although through her high school career she has not only been interested in government and politics, but other subjects like calculus and the sciences, she believes that at some point in her life she will be able to play her role in shaping the future of this nation.