Clarissa Gibbons

Clarissa Gibbons ()

My mom Clarissa Gibbons has always been someone to help others, in small ways or big ones. She grew up in the small town of South Hero, Vermont, and always loved to help out those around her from helping teachers, tutoring classmates, and being in organizations that helped other kids. Then years later she joined an organization that helped women and their babies.

Clarissa always wanted to help people because when she was younger she had a lot of trouble learning and had a reading disability. She had experienced what it was like to struggle with skills that her classmates easily learned. She now works at a school and works with kids that have learning disabilities or come from very traumatic households. She relates to her students better because she was once in their shoes. She understands the stress and not feeling like you can do something, getting upset or giving up altogether.

When she was in the fourth grade, she started helping out her teachers with small things. She wanted to become a teacher when she grew up and helping her teachers out was just a beginning. When she got to high school and went to a school immensely larger than her last one, she joined clubs like the "Student Service Organization" which worked at book sales and helped with the Salvation Army. She also joined another club in school AIP or "Alternative Learning Program", which helps you find jobs and things to volunteer at. One of the things my mom did was help tutor other classmates that needed extra help in a class.

Clarissa also joined the "Big Brothers Big Sisters," which is volunteering for teenage kids to do with younger kids, and to be their mentor. My mom was assigned a girl that was in the third grade. They played games, went out for ice cream and would hang out.

Years later when my mom was out of college and my brother and I were born, she started helping out at a school. She organized a craft fair and bingo night to raise money for the school. She helped build a playground, worked at bake sales, worked with the school librarian, and helped out elementary teachers in the school.

Clarissa also joined an organization "Birthright" which helps women who are having unexpected pregnancies. The organization was started in 1968 by a woman named Louise Summerhill in Canada. It is the first international, crisis pregnancy service. Louise felt as though women who were unexpectedly pregnant were being left behind and left to fend for themselves. "The essence of Birthright is love. Birthright is unique and committed to offering free, non-judgemental help to women facing unplanned pregnancies. Birthright offers love, hope and support to each woman to help her make a realistic plan for her unborn child."

Clarissa joined the organization because she had many friends that had abortions in college and saw all the emotional pain they went through. "It was hard watching people going through abortions and feeling bad about what they had done. And the scars it left behind emotionally. Wondering about what your life would be like if you had that child. What the child would have been like."

Clarissa wanted to find an organization that also helped and cared about the woman and the child, not just the child. She felt that many organizations focused only on the child and the woman was the least of their worries. Clarissa also liked that Birthright isn't focused around a specific group of people and all types of woman can get help there.

She helped with organizing annual fundraising dinners and meetings. She didn't feel as connected though because she didn't have the time to volunteer and be there for support as much as she would have liked. But she did enjoy the speakers that would come in during the dinners and talk about their own experiences volunteering, or when clients would talk about their experiences there as well. Clarissa was inspired by the strength of these volunteers and clients and the stories they had to share.

Clarissa Gibbons is my hero because she has always been a role model to me. She tries to help everyone she can and dedicates a lot of her time to those that need help. Not only does she have a big heart, but a big heart for those that she has also just met. She has showed me that everyone needs a shoulder to lean on sometimes and it's ok to get help, to not be embarrassed no matter what it may be. She has shown that you will gain so much if you take some of your time to helps those that just need a little faith.