About Me

Hi! My name is Tori Smith and I am a freshman at the College of Virginia Tech! This first blog of mine is primarily so that you all, my readers, get to know me a little better. When I want to get to know someone I want to know all the "boring" little details about their life, but also want to know what makes that person tick, what are they passionate about and why.

So, about me. I am from Great Falls, VA (NOVA), but was born in Buffalo, NY, where I lived until about age 7, and all my extended family still lives there. I have six people in my family, and one of those persons is fluffy and has four legs. These family members include my mom, dad, younger brother Will (age 17), younger sister Grace (age 15), and my dog Mango.

I went to Catholic high so that is a big part of who I am. I love service. A big part of my service consisted of helping other student with learning disabilities through the Options program at my high school. I was driven to help out with this as my carpool and great friend throughout my 4 years was in the options program. He has autism and is a gift from God.

My senior year I went on a service trip to the Banica, in the DR. While there our mission was laying concrete floors, but our experience there was so much more than that. Having a concrete floor, for the people of Banica, meant a number of things. For one, it was much better for health purposes, like giving birth or having babies crawl around on the concrete opposed to a dirt floor. Also having a concrete floor gave a sense of pride and accomplishment to that family.

The contractors that we worked with were great people with high spirits and clear gratitude for our help with these projects. They made the concrete by having a pile of dirt on the floor and then throwing small rocks and water onto the dirt. We would then mix the dirt, rocks, and water together on the ground with shovels. Then once the consistency of the mixture was heavy and a bit wet we would put some of the mix into buckets which we carried to houses and then dumped on the floors to be spread out to dry. Also we used some of the cement to make walls of the houses. I helped one young boy do this. We would grab some cement in our hands and toss it firmly against the wall for it to dry there. We would soften it out and toss some sand on it too. At first it made me sad that the people of Banica had to live in these conditions, but seeing how happy these people were in their living conditions made me happy and mostly extremely grateful for the way we live here in America.

The truest blessing of being in Banica was the opportunity to get to know and befriend the people there. Both the young and the old show unconditional love and kindness towards us, even though we had never met them before and also didn't even speak the same language!

I hope to use my intended major of Biology to go pre-med and help others all over the world so they get the medical attention they need to live a happy and prosperous life.

That is only a little glimpse of who I am. But I hope to share more of who I am throughout all these blog posts :)

For more info and pics from Banica, visit https://torismith17.exposure.co/banica-mission-trip-2015