“Thank you, for reading to me”.
 

That is what a little girl said to me, after I had spent an hour scavenging through heaps of books and reading every book that had the title Star War. Before this, I had never volunteered for anything mainly due to my fear of speaking to strangers. Now that I begin to volunteer, I see society for what it really is a dog-eat-dog world. This makes me regret not joining Interact during  freshman year and volunteering more to impact more people's lives. One little girl while volunteering at a Phoenix shelter opened my eyes completely, to see all the potential effect I could have had if I began volunteering earlier, but without this little girl I would not have realized the strength of hope.

She uttered to me, that one day her dad had a job then he did not, and they lost everything in the blink of an eye. She also uttered, everything for her family fell apart while she maintained the belief that everything will get better by holding on to hope. Her eyes were sparkling like a star in the clearest of nights, and through this the confusion was cleared up in my mind, and I realized that hope is the only thing you need in life. Hope is stronger than anything. Hope is the only thing this little girl had, and she put everything into hope. I was there to read to her and try and change or affect her life that day and she ended up leaving me with a lasting impression of hope changing my view on life.

That life changing day, she was full of so much life and energy for a little girl that just lost everything. The one thing the world could not take from her was hope. She came up to me and said would you read to me and I said of course, go grab a book you would like me to read. She took off to the races and grabbed several books, but I was only able to read one thoroughly because she kept going and grabbing new books hoping to find a book about Star Wars. I asked her why is she so obsessed with finding a Star War book. She responded, that those books relate to her on a personal level because of the rebellion keeping up the fight against a stronger empire. Some could say that the fight was hopeless, but the rebellion remained full of hope because that was all they had and that was all she had as well. Instead of bowing down to her adversary she continued to believe it would get better. She searched for the Star Wars book endlessly. She was like a lion hunting a gazelle in the wild. She continued to rummage from table to table through loads of books to find the one title that meant the most to her and symbolize her hope and beliefs. She let out an exasperated grown after going through the last of the books at the second to last table. Then I got up and floated like an invisible specter searching through heaps of endless books, by David Pilkey, J.K Rowling, J.R.R Tolkien, and several other authors. After going through several mounds of books I uttered it is hopeless. Then, she came up to me and stated with no hesitation it is “never hopeless!” That was when I realized “hope” was all she had, and I was denouncing it, so she repeated with ferocity oozing from her eyes and words, “hope is all we have you have to have hope.” It was more powerful than anything anyone could ever say.                  

No one could ever change her mind. So, we continued to search. We went through the last heap of books.  Her fulgurant determination impressed me and it motivated me to search more thoroughly through the stacks of books. We searched and searched then finally found the Star Wars a New Hope picture book. Her euphoric feeling for finding the book she searched endlessly for, showed me that hope can lead to a blessing and to appreciate the small victories in life. I have now realized that you can make it through any situation in life if you have hope that it will get better.