421 Greyfield Drive

Canton, GA 30115

April 18, 2012

Judges, Senior Project

Creekview High School

1550 Owens Store Road

Canton, GA 30115

Dear Judges:

I am Danielle Chiavelli, and I am a senior at Creekview High School. At home, I have two

brothers; Michael is a freshman at Creekview, and Ryan is a seventh grader at Creekland. I am

extremely close with my family. I also have two dogs; Molly is a puggle, and Charlie is a chug. I

feel like my dogs are also part of my family. However, next year I plan to leave home and go to

the University of Georgia to study Speech and Language Pathology. It is going to be difficult for

me to be away from my family, but I am excited to go to college. Before I even think about

college, I need to focus on the rest of high school. Right now, my senior project is one of my

main focuses. For my senior project, I chose to knit hats for premature babies as well as raise

money for the March of Dimes. I chose this project because I was born six and a half weeks

premature, so I understand the challenges that preemies face first hand. I want to help preterm

babies just as someone helped me 17 years ago.

Through my research, I learned more about premature babies and their strenuous lives; they go

through a great deal of hardship before they even leave the hospital. While researching, I learned

that every premature baby leaves the hospital with a hat that was donated. I wanted to help that

cause, so I decided to knit hats for the premature babies; however, I did not feel like that was

enough of a donation. Therefore, I also raised money for the March of Dimes. Raising money

was more difficult than I expected it to be. I went to several different stores, but none of them

would allow me to ask for donations outside of their buildings. In the end, I had to go door to

door in my neighborhood to raise money. Although I was successful in collecting money, I felt

more accomplished when I finished making my hats. I enjoyed donating the hats to the hospital;

the nurses’ enthusiastic facial expressions made my entire project worthwhile.

In the career field, my topic of premature babies relates to neonatal nursing. When I started my

project, I was thinking about pursuing this career; however, now I know that I do not want to

become a neonatal nurse. While I was doing my senior project, I also shadowed a family friend

who is a speech therapist. As I shadowed her, I learned that I want to study speech and language

pathology. In this career, I can also help children; in this way, the two career options are similar.

My senior project did help me to learn more about myself. I realized that I am very committed to

my various projects, and I also realized that I have very good time management skills. Without

these skills, I would not have been able to complete my project.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed working on my senior project. I think senior projects help

students learn more about themselves as people. This project also helps students learn more

about a possible career path. I wish we did this project our junior year instead of our senior year

because I feel like senior year is a little too late to make these types of decisions. Overall, I felt

like my senior project was good for me. Thank you for reading my letter and giving me the time

to share my project with you.

Sincerely,

Danielle Chiavelli