ANISA RAMAILEH

Anisa Ramaileh’s desire to volunteer began in 1997, after her sister, Summer, died from leukemia. Anisa organized a group called Helping Hands, in which she provided plaster hand molds to parents of terminally ill children. This program has been recognized by local and national organizations.

With this recognition additional volunteers became involved to create the Summer’s Friends Organization to raise money for cancer research and the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. With Anisa’s initiative the volunteers have become more aware of hardships faced by family members with terminally ill children. The members are currently sponsoring a program to help a local teenager with a bone marrow transplant. Funds are raised through the use of flyers circulated throughout the business community and residences. Volunteers meet with student and business groups outlining the organization goals. “Heart of America,” a national service organization, recognized Anisa’s leadership skills and sponsored her trip to Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2000 to speak to 5,000 inner school students on the values of service.

Volunteers met with teenagers and discovered a prevalent problem of depression, stress and high community suicide numbers. The group, under the leadership of Anisa, wrote a grant proposal to Youth Vision for depression and stress funding and to start a teenage suicide prevention program in her community.

As a student at Bountiful High School, Anisa is State President of the Governor’s Youth Council in which she plans meetings, projects, rallies, retreats and organizes committees that provide resources, such as informational brochures, to the state. She is Vice President of Operation Smile, a program that helps raise money to fund operations for children in third-world countries suffering because of facial deformities. As Vice President of the Key Club, Anisa assists the President in membership drives, announcing meetings, doing service projects and fundraisers. The club’s goal this year is to raise $1,000 for children with Iodine Deficiency Disorder and for the Children’s Miracle Network. She is President of the Volunteer Incentive Program with a goal that each member will serve their community for 100 hours or more. These organizations are just a few of the many in which Anisa is involved.

During the 1999/2000 school year, Anisa was one of two Utah students receiving the National Horatio Algier Service Award for academic achievement and her devotion to community service. She was also a recipient of the 2000 Governor’s Youth Achievement Award as well as the 2000 Davis County Youth Achievement Award.