“Advocacy is the value that guides my decisions because I believe access, opportunity, and justice mean little unless we are willing to fight to ensure everyone can truly reach them.

I see this reality every day in my work as an Inpatient Financial Counselor at a Level 1 Trauma Center in Minneapolis, where I support admitted patients during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. Many are navigating severe medical emergencies while also terrified of what their care will cost. Others are physically unable to advocate for themselves due to critical illness, unconsciousness, intubation, or end-of-life circumstances. In many cases, I meet families at the bedside while they are processing life-changing news and simultaneously trying to understand how they will afford the care their loved one needs in order to recover.

In these moments, my role extends far beyond intakes and processing applications. I advocate for patients and families navigating systems they do not understand in environments where fear and crisis make self-advocacy nearly impossible. Many of the patients I serve arrive uninsured, not because they failed the system, but because the system failed them long before they entered the hospital, leaving them without support, without trust in public institutions, and without a clear path forward. Over the last year, I have helped secure nearly $30 million in approved care for hundreds of patients, working to ensure these failures do not continue to determine who receives treatment. This advocacy helps patients access not only emergency care, but also follow-up treatment, medications, specialty appointments, rehabilitation, and additional procedures that many of them otherwise could not afford.

My commitment to advocacy extends beyond healthcare. Through my work with Good Trouble, a youth-led nonprofit, I help equip young people with the tools to advocate for themselves and their communities through organizing, storytelling, and civic engagement. In this role, I work to ensure young people are not merely heard, but are also equipped to influence the systems shaping their lives. While my work in healthcare often requires advocating on behalf of others, this work focuses on empowering young people to become advocates themselves.

Together, these experiences have shaped how I understand service: not as passive assistance, but as active advocacy. Service means stepping in when systems fail, helping others navigate barriers they should not have to face alone, and refusing to accept inequity as inevitable.

This realization drives my pursuit of legal education. Support from this scholarship will help me build the expertise needed to become an attorney focused on advancing policies that expand equitable healthcare access and improve the systems people rely on in moments of crisis.

Advocacy will continue to guide every step of my education and future career. Whether I am helping a patient navigate a medical crisis, empowering young people to raise their voices, or shaping the legal and policy frameworks that govern our institutions, my goal will remain the same: helping build systems worthy of the people they are meant to serve.