Hi, I am Petra Kapsalis and I am so excited to be here on this beautiful day after a wonderful car ride from Shelburne. The reason why I am so excited to be here is because I am interested in immersing myself into a year long project on a pressing issue. I have not quite figured out what I am going to be basing my project on yet, but I am thrilled at the prospect of changing our community in a positive way. An idea that I thought about working on is the Opioid crisis in Vermont and how it effects the children of family’s. I am interested in this problem because of how large it is in our state. I heard that Vermont has the most Opioid user per. capita in the nation, and I want to figure out how and why this was happening? Then figure out what is happening to the kids who’s parents are involved in the drug. This was sparked because of a radio podcast that I heard, about this kid who’s mom was addicted and how her life was with a family member who was not very present. When I heard about her life, I realized how fortunate I am to have the life that I live. I want everybody to have a childhood like mine and not controlled by something. By doing this project I think I can learn a lot about lives of other people and what I can do to help the people around me.  Not only do I get to create this amazing project, I can do it along side people from a bunch of different age groups from around the state. I think that this opportunity will help to prepare me for the future and other important projects like this.

I hope that because I am so interested in helping others, I will get into the “flow” easier with this project. Helping to find a solution to something is a great way for me to get interested in the topic and inspires me to do the work that is needed to make a positive change. I hope that through WTS writing can be something that I can get into the flow, even if I am not that good at the certain topic I am writing about. Through interest, desire, and inspiration about this program, it will help me become more of a natural writer.

This is the front of my “Flow Card”

This is the back of my “flow” card