Arianna Stephens

“I live with my parents and they are awesome. I can tell my mom anything and my dad is totally who I look up to! I am starting high school this month and cant wait! I have a lot of friends but there are a couple of really great friends that I can trust with anything. Cheer, cheer, cheer are my interests, haha, that’s all I ever do! I do golf and wanna dive in high school. I want to cheer all the way through college and then be a physical therapist and a own a gym that does competitive cheer.”

Arianna Stephens is a trophy bearing all American Midwestern teenager with a great smile marking a wonderful disposition, a wealth of popularity, and a large appetite for helping others. Since she was a little girl her mom Shannon recalls Arianna’s unusually acute calling to serendipitous acts.

“She has always been a giver. Every 6 months she would gather up toys and clothes and she would help deliver them. When she was 3, the night before Easter, I asked if she wanted to leave anything out for the Easter Bunny (thinking carrots and such). She answered that she wanted to leave him some of her toys so that he could taken them to the kids that didn't have any.

There was the Easter at age 3, every school year she would donate her books to her elementary school teachers, and her go through her games and donate them to the Ronald McDonald House, she would give away bags and bags of clothes to friends that didn't have the money for Limited Too and Abercrombie and other such brands like most of the kids were able to wear.

Her 8th birthday she decided that she didn't need anything and wanted her friends to bring new clothes for the local foster kids instead of bringing her gifts, which we did. In 6th grade she decided again that she didn't want gifts. She had about 50 or 60 kids coming to her party and decided that she would rather raise money for the Ronald McDonald house.

We got donation envelopes from them and put them with the invitations and requested they follow her desires. She raised nearly $700 for the Ronald McDonald house. She has also volunteered her time doing "maid" type services for the Ronald McDonald house, collects the soda can tabs for them (it helps them pay for a nights stay). In 4th grade she did volunteer work to help clean up the elementary school grounds.”

Arianna isn’t certain how this activity got sparked, but she loves it and it continues to this day. She loves all of it, from the mundane tasks to the matter of fundraising for her pet projects.

“I don't know how I got an interest. I just like to make people happy and it makes me sad when someone, especially a kid, doesn’t have something. I hate it when someone feels left out or hurt. I like the Ronald McDonald house because I feel so bad for the people who need it and they shouldn't have to worry about anything else if their kid is sick, and because they have a room where they have like a "store" thing and foster kids get to go there 2 times a year and get 2 brand new outfits.

I really like changing the beds and vacuuming stuff at the Ronald Mc Donald House. I am always collecting tab tops for the McDonald's house, and I go through my things about every six months and donate them to the abused women’s shelter to use or for them to sell to make money. I am also volunteering at the hospital. It feels good to think of other people being happy because someone cares about them.”

To hear of these things is admirable, I believe in part, because it triggers a recognition in all of us deep down of who we really are. Arianna recognized herself early in the wonder of such compassion. For others, her story serves as a reminder that being human in its truest sensibility and most natural moment is kind and generous.

For Arianna, extending remarkable gestures of care for the welfare of others is actually considered to be essential. Ironically it’s the way she met her parents in the first place. Shannon explains that Arianna knows first hand of the very compassion she exhibits.

“Arianna was placed with us through foster care when she was 14 1/2 months old and the adoption was final 16 months later. She was a very shy little girl but also silly, sweet, funny & smart! She is an only child and we do all we can to show her that we love her so much! She is a school cheerleader (3) years now a competitive cheerleader (going on her 10th year), and is nice to EVERYONE. That is the biggest complaint I hear from other kids actually, that she is nice to everyone ha ha.”

If you were to meet Arianna, you may not any of this know any of this straight off. You might easily see her beauty and friendliness and talent if you caught her at a cheerleading event, like the sort her mom describes as ultimately global.

“Arianna was featured in American Cheerleader Jr. Magazine when she was in second grade. And she has won all kinds of awards. She is currently on a level 5 senior team. Level 5 is the highest level in cheerleading. Last year she was on a level 5 junior team which earned a bid to Worlds. World's is the Olympics of cheer where countries all over the world send their best athletes to compete. It's held in Florida and ESPN televises it.”

As the healthy champions of achievement are recognized publicly, the Stephens family is not about boasting to others of the actions prompted by the heart.

Acts of kindness toward others is something the Stephens steer away from the social talk of the day. There is a value in this silence as Shannon explains.

It’s called humility.

“Arianna has been taught that you do not brag about things you do for others, because then it isn't actually a deed for others, but for yourself. She does not boast or brag, but only discusses it when she is trying to get others to help a charity as well.”

“Nobody like someone that brags about what they do,” says Arianna. “ People know if you are a good person. You don't have to tell everybody.”

Arianna’s idea of a hero is equal to the integrity of her advice to other teenagers growing up in the world today. She says a hero is ”Someone who does the right thing even when they don’t want to. My parents and Jesus are my heroes. I know that sounds like I am just saying that but it’s really true.”

To her peers she suggests, “”Figure out what needs to be done and do it. Everything adds up and if you can make just one person smile or feel good then it’s worth it. Just think if it was you or someone you love that needed something and how you would want people to treat you. Feeling loved is happiness. I just think that if people were nicer to each other then the world would be a better place.”

I was once touched by a remark about the notion of disappearing into the act of Love. It is a place where notoriety is no longer necessary. In the truest sense of heroism it is the most humble movement that might never be spoken of that becomes the actual force of change or healing. It is the moment when love becomes the game changer. Some call these moments miracles.

For the unsung heroes these moments connect into a way of life that no words may ever know how to arrange a comment beyond, “Thank you.” It is the integrity of this hero whose real glory lies in the opportunity to serve a need or conjure up the courage to deliver serendipity where there might be none. The gesture of kindness is its own reward in a quiet act of responding. Much like the reciprocal love a mother has for a daughter whose relationship began in one such act. Arianna’s character mirrors how her own life began. In the nobility of compassion and the unexpected stirring of love in action.

“A hero does what is right, regardless of what anyone else thinks, and not only when it's the easy thing to do. Arianna would most certainly be at the top of my list.

Arianna is a great kid, who tries to do the right thing. She is forgiving, and loving and good. She is the person I wish I could be.” – Shannon Stephens