The first time Alexandra “Ally” Difani participated in volunteer work, she was only about 7 years old.
She and her mom visited Marta’s House, a women’s crisis center in Klamath Falls, right before Christmas. They organized, wrapped and delivered gifts to families with financial need. Ally has volunteered at Marta’s House almost every holiday season since then.
Ally, a 14-year-old freshman at Henley High School, writes articles for her school’s magazine and helps out with theater productions, but she still manages to find time to volunteer. At first it was because of her mother, who is an avid volunteer. Now, Ally volunteers because it brings her joy to help others; she doesn’t even think of it as work.
“Volunteering is a good way for me to give back to my community,” she said. Some of Ally’s favorite moments at Marta’s House are the ones where she drops off gifts she helped wrap. She usually does volunteer work behind the scenes but loves seeing the reactions of the people she’s impacted. It gives her a reason to keep going.
“I wish I could just help everybody,” she said.
Her altruism doesn’t stop with her work at Marta’s House. At her school, she has helped run the concession stand at basketball games and other events to fundraise for her Key Club, which works on projects like beautifying the school. At home, Ally cares for more than 11 plants with names like Jeffrey and Tina Jr., plus three cats named Shadow, Banshee and Pedro.
In the future, Ally wants to volunteer at the animal shelter where she adopted her cats as well as continue to be involved in her school community. She hopes to study psychology or neurology in college and plans to keep helping those in need for the rest of her life. Her philosophy is that if you even help out a little, you’re doing something good.
“I think the only way I could ever not volunteer again is if nothing else needed to be improved,” she said.
— Supattra Namnon, St. Mary’s Academy
This story was produced by student reporters as part of the High School Journalism Institute, an annual collaboration among The Oregonian/OregonLive, Oregon State University and other Oregon media organizations. For more information or to support the program, go to oregonlive.com/hsji.