Addison Jean DeVinney
My name is Addison DeVinney. I am currently an 18 year old student at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center, in the Early Childhood Education Program. I chose to move from Niles McKinley High to this program beacause I have a huge passion to shape children’s minds. I believe that our future is important, and teaching our future generation will impact the world. I am also the president of an organization called Educator’s Rising for future teachers across America. My responsibilities include organizing meetings, agendas, competition, Installation, and other tasks that are beneficial to our program. After I graduate , I am going to be working at Bright Beginning’s Learning Center in Niles, then next school year I will be a Teacher’s Aide for the Niles Primary school.I plan on going to YSU to continue my career path in early childhood, and I will be enlisting into the National Guard. While juggling all of that, I also plan to learn ASL because I think that it is a beautiful and beneficial language. In my spare time, I like to help my middle school youth group at my church, and I love to enjoy nature.
Insight of where I came From
I am a huge family person. Growing up with 2 brothers, and a little sidekick of a nephew has definitely shaped who I am, and I don’t know where I would be without them. My huge Italian family has also played a huge role of who I have made myself to be. From the laughs, cries, tears, and craziness, we all manage to hold each other together forever.
Where did my passion come from?
My passion for Early Childhood Education grew because of this little guy named Carter. He is like a nephew to me. It all began when his mother became a 15 year old young mom when she was not ready to. After she had Carter, she became stressed and very tired. When he was about 2 years old, she left my house and went to have fun. She would be gone for days at a time and struggled with drug abuse. I was the only one there for this little guy, so I took over for her. I taught him every little thing he knows, and I cared to him until his grandma was able to get custody of him. Seeing the intelligent, loving, precious little man he is growing up to be made me realize that he wasn’t the only one going through this. So, I’ve decided to use my military background in Law Enforcement and degree in Early Childhood, and graduate to be a social worker for children.
In my spare time I love to babysit my family and friend’s children.
Softball
I have played softball since my freshman year of high school. I play second base, pitch, and shortstop for the Niles McKinley Red Dragons. Playing softball has taught me leadership, teamwork, passion, dedication, and has helped me achieve my physical goals. My team and I dedicate ourselves to do our best at practices and games, while still having fun. Our motto is “ Once a Dragon, always a Dragon” .
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Volleyball
I played volleyball for 3 years at Niles McKinley High. I enjoyed the sport for fun, and to meet new friends. It was the first high school sport that I had joined,and I had a lot of fun being apart of the Junior Varsity team.
ASL
A goal of mine is to one day learn to sign. What inspired me to want to learn is watching a series on Netflix called “Switched at Birth” which has many deaf characters. It gave me an insight on what deaf people go through on a day to day basis. They want to be able to communicate with everybody. I believe that signing is a beautiful way to communicate, and when I learn fluently, I could even go further in my career path with it.
Key Club
I was apart of a community service program called Key Club. Our goal is to help our community as much as we could. A few activities that we were apart of and fortunate to help out with was Relay for Life, the Walk for Autism,Trick or Treat at the Scrappers field, sending toiletries overseas for the military, donating school supplies to elementary schools ,and collecting canned goods for Salvation Army. We found so many things around our community to help with and we love doing it!
Students Against Destructive Decisions
I was also apart of a club called SADD which stands for Students Against Destructive Decisions. We promote students to make good choices, and to not get peer pressured into bad decisions. These few pictures were from a parade we were invited to be apart of.
Blood DriveAside from volunteering to help work the Blood Drives for Key Club, I also donated my O+ blood to Red Cross. I do this because I want to save lives. I learned one day that the blood I donated saved six babies' lives!
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YSU English Festival
My Junior year of TCTC, I decided to join the English Festival because I wanted to challenge myself. I was never a huge reader until I did this, and I fell in love with reading. We had to read about seven different novels in the course of a school year, and at the end of the year we went to YSU to meet with other local students to do activities and projects. We also had the pleasure to meet famous authors of a few of the novels. It was a great opportunity .
My love for Animals.
I also have a soft spot for animals. I enjoy learning new things about different species,and how they live. Growing up, I would always try and bring home strays, and it didn’t work all of the time with my Mom! I would save all of them if I really could. The tan pit bull in the pictures is my puppy Nina. We saved her from a bad home a year ago and we nourished her back to good health. She is a miracle sent to my family and I, and we welcomed her in with open arms since day one.
SFE
SFE was an organization I was apart of that stood for Student For the Environment. Our responsibility was to go to local parks and clean up any waste that could damage the environment. We also came up with ideas for the whole school to participate in helping the environment also. For example, students of SFE go around each classroom everyday to collect recycling that the whole school would help with. That way all of the garbage wasn’t going to a landfill. In the picture below, it shows a group of us at the Coulumbus Zoo at the end of the year.
My Pageant
I was in the Miss Niles pageant . This pageant had a few age groups, and I was in the 15-18 year old division. We had a casual attire, summer attire, and even gown attire. It was a really fun experience for me because I met a lot of new friends, and learned a lot about politics. The director gave us a sheet of interview questions to practice for Miss Ohio to ask us, and it made me very prepared for real life.
The Wing Eating Contest
If anybody knows me, they know how big of a fan I am of the New England Patriots. A few years ago on the Super Bowl Sunday they were playing against the Seattle Seahawks, my mom asked me to go to church with her, so I went. I’ve never been to The Movement before, it was my first time. I walk in with welcoming arms , and they asked me to join their Wing Eating Contest, so I did. I fell in love with the atmosphere, and that is when I started going regularly and became very involved. This experience showed myself my confidence, ambition, and let me out of my shell.