Doing graduate work in the area of Social Work is for me a long culmination of service to the Lord and my fellowman. I feel that I am a strong candidate to your program because of the many valuable experiences and privileges of social service that I have had. I want very much to become a more skilled counselor and caregiver, well prepared for working with children and old people alike. In fact, it would be commensurate with my ideal dreams to help to bring children and old people together, as I feel strongly that this relationship is mutually beneficial. If I have to choose between the two, then my interest in Geriatrics will take precedence. I look forward to my own golden age over the next twenty years or so and I want to spend that precious time of my life very active professionally. Completing a Master's Degree in Social Work will help me to achieve my professional goal of being an adept community organizer for the benefit of the weaker and less fortunate members of my community. Achieving the Master's degree in your distinguished program will be the centerpiece or foundation of my professional achievements in the future. I want to help numerous members of my community by helping us all to become more socially sensitive and responsible to those who depend on our support.

Both my long term professional positions have been in the dental profession. What I have learned about helping, human psychology, professional ethics, etc. much of it I have learned at work in the dental office, dealing with doctors, nurses, and especially patients, the smallest ones have always been both a special challenge and delight. Working as a dental assistant has afforded me the opportunity to develop an impressive knowledge base, especially in the area of social services. And I am so very grateful for this privilege that I have had working with so many different types of people and learning how to better understand their problems.

Throughout my many years of labor in several dental offices, I have had a long time to reflect on the dreams that are most important to me. Thankfully, now I have come to a point in my life where my concerns are not so for me to go to graduate school, and, perhaps most importantly, to devote my undivided attention to my studies, unencumbered by a job and children in the home. Most of all, perhaps, it has been my volunteer community activity that has most inspired me towards a career in social work, volunteering with organizations such as girl scouts, boy scouts, and programs that my church has developed for the community and also our youth and seniors in the church and the community.

I also volunteered as an activity assistant at a nursing home and helped plan the daily activities for the residences. I made sure that each residence that wanted to participate in the daily activities had a chance to do so. I am passionately dedicated to the study of the shifting age composition in America with the percentage of American citizens who are over 65 increasing rapidly. And there are numerous social challenges that must be confronted by America's social workers that have been with us all along. But now, we are becoming more aware of older people and I am so happy to be part of the creative energy that is going into our appreciation of America's senior citizens. I stay current on this issue at all levels from government policy both state and federal and the nursing homes of small town America, especially where I live here in Maiden North Carolina. My life is my community, and I am a community organizer. Working with both younger adults and especially our seniors have show me that all people need respect and love no matter their age, color, or religions background; and especially those in nursing homes.

I believe that we have a long way to go in making nursing institutions more like home and I look forward to being part of the new, creative impulses that are driving policy discussions. I now see new hope for bringing nursing home residence into relations of creative, greater interaction with the community. I want to push for solutions to the problems confronting older Americans. I want to work towards assuring our elderly a secure and comfortable environment that includes human enrichment and interactions with the community. Our local churches, in particular, have the responsibility to bring the community to our nursing homes.

I look forward to several more decades of active engagement with these issues and labors of love for the elderly. I hope to address the most relevant and current problems in the field of aging from a variety of different viewpoints on the appropriate solutions to these problems. I want to thank you for your consideration of my application.