BY WILL GALLOWAY, Sophomore
BLYTHEWOOD- In October, 11 trillion gallons of water, enough to fill 636 million swimming pools, fell on South Carolina, displacing thousands and damaging billions of dollars worth of property.
One Blythewood High School senior, Kaitlyn Hardin, has stepped up to lead the relief effort after this crisis by helping the Richland 2 Flood Relief Project, an organization dedicated to helping flood victims within the school district and community.
Hardin is passionate about service, and has taken part in countless service opportunities and projects.
“To see a child suffering breaks my heart”
Kaitlyn credits her desire to serve to her mother, Lisa Hardin.
“My passion and drive for community service stems from my mother, a Nurse Practitioner, who has been a certified Red Cross First Responder since the late 1990's and was dispatched to Louisiana to administer life saving vaccines and shots during Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” she said.
Kaitlyn says while she doesn’t share her mother’s love of medicine, she wanted to find her own ways to serve her community. For this reason, she joined the service organization Leo Club, where she has served as Secretary for three years.
“We have tried to instill in Kaitlyn from a young age how important it is to help others who are less fortunate, especially when you have been blessed with so much,” Lisa said.
She also says because of Kaitlyn’s love of community service, neither she nor her husband, Kevin, was surprised by Kaitlyn’s leadership with the Richland 2 Flood Relief Project.
Lisa is most proud that Kaitlyn’s service is genuine.
“Everything she's accomplished within the community speaks for itself, but what we are most proud of is that it comes from the heart, and that's what really matters,” she said.
Kaitlyn has participated in numerous service projects for dozens of causes, and feels passionately about many issues. She does say however, children’s issues are the most important.
“To see a child suffering breaks my heart,” she said.
A Student Servant
One of Hardin’s greatest hurdles has been balancing her heavy course load with her community service projects. She says it can feel like playing a sport or being in the band, as volunteering can take up huge amounts of free time.
She still tries very hard to make time for service.
“It's all about prioritizing your time, and unfortunately AP coursework takes the cake in most cases. Despite this workload, I am very proud of the projects I have been able to participate in over the years,” she said.
One way Hardin has been able to combine both school and service has been through participation in Leo Club. While in Leo Club, she has clocked an impressive 200 hours of community service during her time at Blythewood.
As Secretary of Leo Club, Hardin has worked hard to help the club reach its full potential. When she took over the club, participation was at an all-time low and several issues plagued the organization.
“When I took the position there were several issues holding the club back from being completely successful; the biggest issue being a severe lack of communication within the officers and board,” she says.
Now, she is proud to say, the issues which had been holding the club back have been eradicated and club membership is now over 200.
She says her proudest accomplishment has been her work in Leo Club. She has made numerous changes to the organization, from improving communication among the officers to expanding membership to the entire school, not just the top ten percent.
Lizzy Beckham, a friend of Hardin’s, says that Hardin has the skills needed to be an effective student leader.
“Kaitlyn is really good at public speaking and talking to adults. She's also very organized and driven and puts all her time and energy into projects she's involved in,” Beckham said.
Hardin, however, says learning to lead has not always been easy.
“Initially when I took the position as Secretary, I truly believed what made a great leader is someone who was always in charge, always calling the shots. Unfortunately, as my plate of responsibilities got fuller and fuller, I quickly learned that I was wrong- what makes a good leader is not one's ability to control, but one's ability to manage,” Hardin says.
Hardin argues while control and manage may seem like synonyms, they are in fact very different. Controlling means doing every task oneself, while managing means delegating responsibilities to the best people for each task.
She says once she learned the difference between the two styles of leadership, she began to be a much more effective Secretary and saw meaningful change in Leo Club.
Hardin believes the greatest misconception people have about her and other service-minded teenagers is they serve for an ulterior motive.
“The fact there there are teenagers within our community that truly have a passion for helping others is a hard concept for some people to grasp. Teenagers in general are misconnected as individuals who are only concerned with themselves,” she says.
And while she concedes some teenagers only participate in service so they can put it on a college application, most truly just want to help their community.
The ongoing Richland 2 Flood Relief Project has proven to be a way for Kaitlyn to serve the community she loves so much. A devastating natural disaster has succeeded in uniting the community in service.
