Kirti is a graduating high school senior from the Charter School of Wilmington. She will be attending the University of Delaware in the fall, where she will be majoring in Medical Diagnostics while also a part of the Honors College and World Scholar program. Kirti’s many hobbies include dance, cross country, sketching, and bullet journaling. In Charity Crossing, Kirti is the Youth Leader for the Herlihy serve in Wilmington. Kirti started volunteering for Charity Crossing during the peak of COVID-19 in 2020, as a way to help her community during the difficult times. “Due to the high-risk factor, people losing their homes and livelihoods, I wanted to help mitigate that pain by any means possible, and Charity Crossing was one of the outlets to help me do that,” she says. “[It’s] actually quite helpful to know that I can do something for the community, whether weekly, daily, monthly — anything.”
Kirti also talks about opportunities she has had to serve people from different communities as well and talks about how grateful she is for those opportunities that joining Charity Crossing has provided her. “Charity Crossing has provided me with many outlets to help the underprivileged around Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other places through many services activities, whether its blood donations, serving the community with household goods and food, and things like that.”
Just graduating high school from a frantic year of college applications on top of academics, Kirti has a lot of advice about balancing time with responsibilities and volunteer work for newer volunteers who want to make a difference in their community. “There’s been a lot of things to join and outlets to go through, but it’s definitely a lot of work in order to manage these things,” she states. She recalls her own experiences in Charity Crossing. “It’s definitely going to be a lot at first, but all that hard work has paid off since I earned the Governor’s Youth Service Award this year, which is kind of a nice honor.” Kirti effectively manages her time by organizing her work and her time for volunteering, and her academics. “It’s important to allot specific times for that and focus on getting that task done at hand with efficiency.” She emphasizes the importance of setting aside a certain time for each thing and has advice for those struggling with procrastination. “If you struggle with managing your time, it’s important to work ahead and not procrastinate.” She gives advice such as setting due dates earlier, so work can get done earlier without being put off until close to the deadline. “It’s definitely going to be tough, trying to manage both [personal/academic responsibilities and volunteering], but it is possible as long as you stick to a plan and try to set your due dates earlier.”
Apart from being a Youth Leader for the Herlihy serve, Kirti is very active among Charity Crossing’s other teams and initiatives. She also leads the Socks Drive, in addition to being on the Digital Communications and Newsletter team. She has also joined the Leadership Team for the Blood Donation group, and is joining the Charity Crossing team at the University of Delaware.
