By Terra Avilla
Perhaps the best part of living in or wonderful community is being a part of the lives of so many children. Getting to watch them grow up, blossom, learn, excel, and become their own person.
Now in a large community, you would still get this blessing, but on a much smaller scale. The intimacy of our community allows us to view a much broader window into our youth.
We are way more connected to each other, which is to be expected in terms of how small we are. (i.e., the odds of bumping into each other, having our kids on the same sports team, unplanned park play dates are just way more likely.)
I would like to take this week, to write about one young lady who has grown up before my very eyes and I feel so privileged to be a small part of life. I know her as Captain Parker of the Susanville Police Department Explorer Program, however most of you would know her as Arianna “Ari” Parker.
This sweet, smart, and driven young lady is only seventeen years old. However, she carries herself with a maturity found in women much older.
When I met her, she was barely thirteen years old. She was too young to join our Explorer Post, however through extreme recommendations and her own hard work, I allowed her to join the Post on a contingent basis. She was thirteen years old – keeping up with sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds.
As a part of joining our Post, Explorers must complete a panel interview. Now, panel interviews are scary even as an adult, I can only imagine how daunting it must have been for her to sit in front of grown adults and her peers, yet she did exceptionally well.
Since joining the Post Ari has graduated to Squad Leader and for the past two-and-a-half years has been our Captain, meaning lots of extra work. I pulled her community service hours through our post a couple of months ago and she had completed over five hundred hours of community service! That is on top of trainings, maintaining her GPA and helping with all of the other thankless tasks that are required.
I have watched her blossom into an amazing role model, leader, and just overall great human being.
The benefit of living where we do, is that I constantly get to see her in a multitude of different capacities: a great big sister, a student, a friend, a daughter, etc. Watching her grow up has been an absolute pleasure.
It is my constant reminder of why I love the interwoven-ness of our community. Getting a glimpse into the journey of someone else’s baby and getting to cheer them on as they grow is truly a blessing I don’t take lightly.
I have very little (if any) to do with the amazing young woman Arianna is today, however being able to watch her the past half a decade has been inspiring, because she along with so many other amazing teens are a part of why I love the place we live.
