Meet our 2019 Ambassadors: Anna on Costa Rica Language & Leadership

​Anna Goyette is currently a sophomore in a small high school in New Hampshire. A highest honor roll student,​ ​and Girl Scout for eight years now, she has learned the importance of helping her community and the​ ​challenges and rewards of being a leader. When she was younger, she never thought of herself as a natural​ ​leader. However, after attending a summer camp Anna loved for five years thanks to her wonderful​ ​grandmother, she was able to recognize her passion for staying active, and being a leader in her community.​ ​She completed her Bronze Award in Girl Scouts,​ ​where she organized a local fundraiser for a nearby animal shelter. Now, she is working on her Gold Award. She hopes to replace her school’s​ ​styrofoam plates with​ ​reusable ones, cutting down of the harmful waster her school produces. Although this will be exceptionally​ ​difficult due to​ ​budgeting issues, she hopes her foundation of motivation, hard work, creativity and passion for protecting the environment will help her along the​ ​way to a more eco-friendly school.

Entering high school in 2017, Anna joined her high school’s branch of Interact, an international community service group that focuses on​ ​impacting their local communities through service projects, and creating and​ ​organizing fundraisers to help local and international areas that need support. She loves surrounding herself​ ​with motivated and civic-minded people that share the same passion for helping people in need. As a result of​ ​this, she helped create, organize and execute Interact’s first fundraiser, Puerto Rico Rises. Bouncing back from​ ​a huge setback, Interact had only four committed people at the time. Thanks to Anna’s friends in Puerto Rico​ ​(who were thankfully all safe), the group was able to see and hear first-hand the damage and devastation​ ​hurricane Maria had caused. This helped inspire the group to work hard and overcome the challenges of​ ​limited resources to pull off a fairly successful fundraiser. As a small group, exposure for Puerto Rico Rises​ ​was difficult, and some people weren’t even aware of the damage and devastation the people of Puerto Rico​ ​were facing. Anna and the rest of Interact went from class to class, spreading the word about Puerto Rico​ ​Rises and the t-shirts they were selling to raise money for the cause. The hard work from the group paid off,​ ​creating a fairly successful fundraiser. They raised several thousand dollars to be donated to the Puerto Rico​ ​Rotary branch, who​ ​bought food and water filters to distribute among the people. Interact taught Anna how to​ ​be a leader within a group, and a community. It taught​ ​her that not everything turns out perfectly the first time​ ​around, and that perseverance is one of the most important qualities of being a leader.