What does the word "Talent" mean to you?

I am excited that Share Your Sparkle Day is only 5 days away! This year I decided I wanted to use my talent of portrait photography to do a photo shoot. I posted it on my community garage sale Facebook group and two little girls to photograph. I am very excited and I hope you have an idea of what you are going to do too. If not, you will have a better idea by the end of this blog post.
I wanted to tell you what Share Your Sparkle Day means to me and its inspiration. As we have discussed before, Share Your Sparkle Day is based off one of our 5 keys to self-esteem: Making Your Mark. At our workshops each key is a station, and at Making Your Mark we focus on how you can use your talents to help others. To accompany this message we make Valentine’s Day cards for Project Valentine. I encourage you to check them out! 

More times than not the girls at Making Your Mark have a hard time thinking about how they can use their talents to do service because they can’t think of their talents. The problem is almost always that the girls think about talents as being limited to music, sports, or art. If talents were limited to being musical, artistic, or athletic I would be in trouble! When I personally reflect on my talents I think of personality traits and characteristics, such as being driven, hard-working, organized, open-minded, and friendly. These talents have allowed me to have many cool opportunities in my life, one of those opportunities being the Shimmer Sparkle Shine Project. My talents of being hardworking and organized have allowed me to create this project that allows me to give back daily.

  On a mission and getting things ready for our first SSS workshop ever!
  Therefore, when you think about your talents and how you can use those for the common good, think about what makes you unique. You don’t have to sing well to be talented. You don’t have to draw pictures that give da Vinci a run for his money to serve others. You just have to be you and have a desire to make the world sparkle a little bit brighter to participate in Share Your Sparkle Day. You can actually spread your sparkle any day for that matter! 

Studying and working hard with friends on a homework project.
Being kind and doing small acts of service has allowed me to create some wonderful relationships I don’t think I would have had unless I had gone out of my way to make their lives sparkle a tad bit brighter. Even when my self-worth was at its lowest in middle school, I knew the one thing I could offer anyone was being a good friend. Knowing that I had a loving and dedicated personality to offer is one of the main things that pushed me to keep my head up during those years.
Please look inside yourself, and don’t be shy about what makes you sparkle. I am positive that there are SO MANY things that makes you sparkle; the response “I can’t think of any talents” isn’t acceptable! Now get out there sparklers and Share Your Sparkle! 

I look forward to hearing what everyone does on May 13th!
With Love, Ciara Neill

Receiving the dedicated to community service award from the City of Northglenn



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