Gateway Young Achiever profile

High Ridge girl continues helping others

Thirteen-year-old Kami Fox is continuing many of the "helping" projects she started while in elementary school. It's part of what she wants to continue doing throughout her life.

Last year, while at Lone Dell Elementary School, Kami was named a 2008 Gateway Young Achiever for her outstanding academic work was well as for her school and community service.

Kami Fox

This year, the High Ridge girl is a 7th grader at Seckman Middle School in Imperial, MO. She's been able to continue a number of service activities that helped her earn the Young Achiever award.

One continuing activity is helping physically impaired (PI) kids with school work.

"At Lone Dell, I helped with a whole group of PI kids. At Seckman, I've been helping with individual students," she said.

(Since last summer, Young Saint Louis.com has been writing individual profiles of elementary and middle school kids who won the 2008 Gateway Young Achiever award. This is the final profile of the 2008 winners.

(To read about other 2008 winners, you can find individual profiles by going to Past Stories and click on any edition from June through December, 2008. A story naming all the winners was run in May, 2008.)

Kami said she wants to attend Washington University Medical School and become a pediatrician. She said she wants to specialize in helping handicapped or disabled children.

At Lone Dell school, teachers have a "Catching a kid doing something good" award. That's given to kids that teachers notice doing a good deed for someone else. Kami won in both 5th and 6th grade.

She said, "The teachers see us doing something but they don't tell us why we won. I don't do things for the prize; I just want to help other people."

Kami has been named to the Seckman Student Council this year. She was on the Lone Dell Student Council last year.

"This year, at Seckman, the council is working on a Project Green. We are working to expand our recycling efforts to include collecting old electronic gear for recycling," she said.

For four of the five years at Lone Dell, Kami was the best fundraiser on a candle project to aid the school's library. Proceeds from the sale of candles went to help the library strengthen its accelerated reading program.

Asked about the year she wasn't the top fund-raiser, Kami said that was last year when one of her friends sold two more candles than she did. She said, "He deserved to win; he worked really hard."

Kami was on the Lone Dell honor roll all six years.

She also was named to the school's Reading Circle all six years. That award goes to kids who read 25 or more books each year. In 5th grade, she finished with over 50 books read.

Kami’s Piano Recital 5-08 Standing behind her is her piano teacher turning the pages of her piece “We’ve Only Just Begun”

She's also excelled in music and art. At Lone Dell, she earned an "artist of the day" award 10 different times. She's had three piece of art displayed at the United Missouri Bank in town.

Kami won music awards for her play with the recorder and the piano. She's taken piano lessons for five years. This year, she's been selected by her teacher to do a vocal solo while providing her own accompaniment on the piano.

At Lone Dell, she was in the school's Character Choir from 3rd through 6th grade.

This year, she's in Seckman's Concert Treble Choir. That's a select group of 24 kids who will be traveling in March to a major competition.

She also sings in the church choir at the Rivers of Life Worship Center. That's a Pentacostal church in St. Clair, MO.

Kami has been involved in a number of volunteer programs, both in school and at church.

Last summer, she volunteers to help with Vacation Bible School for another church.

Kami is peer tutoring another 7th grader

In addition to her work with PI kids, Kami has been involved with peer tutoring of fellow students.

At Lone Dell, she helped younger kids with their classwork.

At Seckman, she's been helping students her own age with a variety of classwork. Sometimes, she helps with class subjects like math, social studies and English.

But, other times, she said she aids classmates who "need help in getting organized."

She also works with kids in the church nursery.

She's active in fund-raisers for a variety of causes, such as St. Jude's Hospital for Children as well as fund-raisers for diabetes and veterans causes.

All her classes at Seckman Middle School are advanced curriculum. "I've also graduated out of reading so I can write for the school newspaper," she said.

A former teacher at Lone Dell, Ms. Kathy Vance, wrote a supporting letter for Kami's Young Achiever nomination.

She said, "Kami shows strong leadership ability, motivation and willingness to succeed in whatever she chooses. She shows signs of being a great leader because she listens to others and follows through on promises."

Kami is working hard to develop those skills so she can help others as a medical doctor later in life.