Fuel your Passion, Form your Pageant Platform

While attending an intercollegiate conference geared around LGBT equality and diversity training, I attended an amazing seminar that drew references from Harry Potter and used the trials and struggled faced by the protagonists as not only motivators, but examples of overcoming adversity. Every struggle we face can be compared to a struggle faced by Harry and his friends at Hogwarts. I was incredibly inspired to bring this seminar back to my college, but also promote this concept in middle schools. Death in the family, racism, bloodlines, financial status, bullying… Very real, very relevant issues were discussed in arguably one of the best series of all times. How better to teach youth to overcome these issues, than with their favorite characters?

Boom, my platform. Just like that Using Literacy to Promote Diversity was born. Although I really wanted to focus on Harry Potter, I knew that I would be able to reach larger crowds if I increased my resource pool to other classics, such as Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland.

At this point in my experience, Using Literature to Promote Diversity may have worked. I would have come up with a cute literary pun to use at the title, had a solid marketing plan and class room seminar lesson plans, and been able to use my experience to promote my platform, and explain how it was necessary at the local, state, and national level. However, at the time, it was a vague concept I had come up with based off a short seminar at a conference. I needed to regroup.

At some point in my high school education, I learned briefly about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Later, in a business law class focused around public speaking, we were required to choose a piece of business legislature, and give a presentation on it. Although I attended a very conservative school, the presentation I gave on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or EDNA for short, was well received. The teacher had personal stories of coworkers and managers in his past who would have benefited from this law, and in truth, his pink polo wearing self, and his wife, would be protected under the law, since legally an employee can be fired based off a rumor or assumption without fact. This naturally became my next platform idea. I knew the law, I had presented the law, and I wanted to pass the law.

There are only so many bigoted judges an already self-conscious contestant can handle. There are only so many ways you can tell a closed-minded person that the law does not take away rights from straight people, nor does it give special rights to gay or transgendered people, it simply provides a legally balanced playing ground. I was irritated. I wanted to stand up for what I knew was right, but at the same time I was being squashed down by judges with questions like, “This region is very conservative. How will you be able to convince the community that they even care about this law, since it does not affect them.” That question, by the way, was politically charged and opinionated, and should have never been allowed. But it was the turning point in my platform. I swallowed my pride and looked for another.

I had been donating blood for nearly 5 years at this point. My grandmother had donated blood until she went on blood thinners and started taking insulin shots, and after she died she donated her eyes to two blind people. My mother frequently donated blood when her iron was high enough. I had donated with my ex-boyfriends, my sister, and my friends at college. We all had different reasons for donating, but the results were all the same. We saved lives. I had begun volunteering at the American Red Cross blood services clinic at a way to kill time on my days off, but also fill my community service resume with something I would genuinely enjoy. It suddenly hit my like a bag of rocks. Promotion of Blood Donation would be my new platform.

I started off rocky. I had a lot of ideas- develop new donors, maintain current donors, get people who can’t donate to hold blood drives, open the restrictions. My platform statement was a mess, but at least my interview would run smoother.

And it did. But I was able to slowly chip away at the platform statement, and polish it up. In the end, I had a very strong very beautiful, passionate page promoting the development of the next generation of blood donors, and pulling the pop culture reference, and fandom, of superheroes, to do it. Why should we donate? Because You Don’t Need a Cape to Be a Hero. It is geared towards teens and young adults, gets them to the bed that first time (which is the hardest step), and encourages them to reap the benefits of becoming a long term donor, through the action of saving lives. It took nearly four years to build, but I am still able to promote this platform, and speak about it at American Red Cross seminars of conferences. If they were to ask me to.

Since aging out, I was able to transfer my two years of American Red Cross volunteer service to the Albany unit, and was re-certified as a blood services donor in the Northeastern region. Instead of going into the Utica blood donation clinic once each week, I am now able to attend blood drives across the region- or right in my community. Instead of sitting at a desk and hoping donors come in, I am literally going to them, in the community, and helping every person I check-in make a difference in the lives of potentially three people. My experiences and research makes me a fabulous candidate for these positions, because I am able to answer questions, I know the science behind it, I know the logistics, and perhaps most importantly, I am a blood donor. I have been in their shoes, and we are working towards the same goal. To save the lives of our community members, by building a new generation of blood donors.

A strong personal platform takes three things: A positive attitude, a passion, and patience. When you know, there is no doubt. We don’t need capes to be heroes. And you don’t need to look for your platform, just close your eyes and believe.