LAHS junior Victoria Nisoli named a Rotary Club 2020 Distinguished Student of Service. Courtesy/Rotary
By Vincent Chiravalle and Linda Hull
Rotary Club of Los Alamos
The Motto of Rotary is Service Above Self. To support this, the Rotary Club of Los Alamos honors “Distinguished Students of Service” in their junior year of high school each academic year.
Students are first nominated by their teachers who are asked to select those who:
- Have given positive contributions to their high school and/or in the community;
- Have a good attitude toward learning;
- Are good citizens, are respectful of their peers and teachers; and
- And have good grades, attendance, and classroom participation.
The Club then selects students based on demonstrated spirit of service and exemplification of the Rotary 4-Way Test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good will and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
The Rotary Club of Los Alamos recently selected Victoria Nisoli as a Distinguished Student of Service. Nisoli is indeed one who has made service part of her life and is also a well-rounded student. Nisoli is a member of National Honor Society, a tutor, and the student representative on the board of the Los Alamos Public Schools Foundation.
She has participated in over 30 hours of volunteer service supporting Key Club activities, including raising funds for Together We Rise, an organization that supplies material care kits to foster children, making their transition between households easier. She has also volunteered with the African Library Project, which supplies books to children in Kenya, and is a fellow with the Santa Fe Council on International Relations (SFCIR). In addition, Victoria is a student athlete who competes on the diving team.
In a Rotary essay, Nisoli shared one of the challenges facing today’s youth: poverty and the lack of adequate resources to have a satisfying life. As a student participant in a fellowship program with the SFCIR, she described in her essay how this program has given her a new perspective on world poverty.
She wrote, “I believe that all aid must be thoroughly informed, and through CIR I have expanded my worldview as well as learned how to respond effectively to problems concerning poverty. Next summer, I intend to do a service exchange through CIR to teach English and mentor students in Morocco. In many foreign countries, being fluent in English is one of the main skills needed for attending secondary school. Many students are not proficient in the language and as a result cannot get higher education, maximizing poverty from one generation to the next. Being able to give students the valuable tools to succeed has a ripple effect in communities, and the result is priceless.”
The Rotary Club of Los Alamos feels that this is a very worthy effort and commends Nisoli for her service to the youth in Los Alamos and globally.
Nisoli is the daughter of Donatella and Cristiano Nisoli. She named Los Alamos High School language arts teacher Christine Engelbrecht as the teacher who has been most influential in her life.
