STUDENT OF MERIT: Student's selflessness knows no bounds

Ashley Shafer practices what she preaches

By JENNIFER KABBANY - For The Californian | Friday, June 20, 2008 7:58 PM PDT ∞

Editor's Note: This is the fifth in a series of profiles on the five winners of The Californian's Students of Merit scholarship competition. The winners of the $250 scholarships were selected by a panel of judges at the newspaper. 

TEMECULA ---- Ashley Shafer has the heart of a servant.

The 17-year-old Linfield Christian School graduate has traveled to Haiti, Fiji and Mexico on evangelical and medical missionary trips, where she has undertaken tasks such as washing people's feet, cleaning lice out of a little girl's hair and distributing worm pills.

Locally, she established a mentorship program for middle school girls at Linfield, meeting with them regularly, encouraging them to stay on the right path.

As a volunteer, she donated time to the Temecula Community Recreation Center, Habitat for Humanity, a San Diego homeless shelter, local youth basketball camps and her school's Project Serve, where she spent a day cleaning trash along Jefferson Avenue.

But that's not all. She was an active leader of her school's Interact Club, a service organization. She financially adopted an African child through an international organization. She visits local senior centers, to make friends and keep people company, and is a member of her school's Invisible Children Club, which aids families suffering in Africa.

During Christmas, she works with Operation Christmas Child, which provides presents to disadvantaged families. She also volunteers as a classroom helper and at fundraisers for her school and church.

And her contributions don't all require physical effort.

Once a week before school she would get together with other students and prays for her peers and campus.

In sum, she has accumulated more than 450 hours of community service during high school.

"She is always thinking of other people," said Walter Combs, a Temecula doctor who took Ashley on the medical missionary trip to Haiti. "I have never seen a more mature, loving, caring person at her age."

In addition to Ashley's volunteerism, she has accomplished great things academically.

She graduated earlier this month with a 4.06 grade-point average, having taken numerous Advanced Placement classes. Throughout high school, she was on the "Principal's List" for honor roll grades and also earned several academic awards from her school.

What's more, she was a member of the basketball team all four years of high school and was also active in her school's drama department, participating in several productions.

For her accomplishments, Ashley is one of five students in Southwest County being awarded a $250 Student of Merit scholarship from The Californian.

Winners were chosen from 59 nominees, and their selection was based on academic success, extracurricular activities, leadership, community service and general strength of character.

Ashley describes herself as dedicated and driven.

"I try to put a lot into what I do," she said. "I felt from a really young age that God has big plans for me. I am not willing to settle to meet those goals."

She also said her family is a huge part of her life and helped shape who she is today.

"(Christianity) was rooted in me from my family," Ashley said of her father, Rick, her mother, Sharon, and her three sisters, twins Amber and Alicia, 30, and Amy, 25. "I remember coming home from school and seeing my sister on her bed, reading her Bible, and I wanted to be like her."

Ashley has always been mature for her age and is a very hard worker, Rick Shafer said.

"When she wants something, she goes after it," he said. "We are so proud of her."

Linfield Christian School teacher Kim Cavlovich notes that Ashley is an excellent role model on campus, that she "keeps a sweet spirit and humble demeanor in the face of so much talent, ability and recognition."

Ashley gives the credit to God.

"It's not because of me," she said. "God does all the work."

Her passion for volunteerism comes from a desire to serve God and spread his message of love, she said.

"I know it sounds cliche, 'What Would Jesus Do?' But that is what we are here for," she said. "(On a missionary trip to Mexico), I got to wash feet. My friend and I were excited because we knew it was something Jesus did."

In Haiti, Ashley worked with deformed children. One child had a layer of lice thickly covering her scalp, and Ashley and others worked to comb them out.

Other Haitians were suffering from goiters or had worms, and Ashley would give them pills.

"She treated these people like they were her kids," Combs said.

"(In Haiti) it's hot. People are sick. You don't sleep very well. There are bugs everywhere," he said. "She just handled it so well for a young lady. I was really impressed."

Despite her maturity, Ashley said she has to remind herself to see lessons in life's trying times, and to not overanalyze things or let anxiety overcome her.

"God is in control," she said. "He'll take care of it."

Ashley plans to attend Biola University, where she will major in communications and minor in Bible studies. Her fantasy job would be to go on missionary trips and then write about them for a national magazine or newspaper, she said.

Through missionary trips, Ashley says, she discovered her calling and learned a few lessons.

"It narrowed my vision and simplified what we are here to do," she said. "It just makes me want to go back so bad and keeping working."

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