WVCSD Superintendent’s Spotlight: Keira Harrison
WVHS senior Keira Harrison feels strongly about helping others experiencing hardship and struggles. Keira is active with WVHS clubs focused on service to the school community and Warwick community at large, local EMS, and also maintains a personal mission to help provide for local people dealing with homelessness.
The perennial Honor Roll student and two-time NYSPHAA Student-Athlete, finds the time to flex her community-service muscle as senior class secretary of the WVHS Student Senate, a member of the Interact Club, and president of the SADD club. She credits her family and her own childhood health issues for fostering the sense of goodwill towards others that drives her.
“My mom’s a guidance counselor, so she’s always been a very giving person, and my dad is an engineer and gardener who donates plants to the farm workers kitchen at the farm workers center in Goshen,” Keira said. “My parents have always pushed me to get to where I am.”
From a young age, Keira’s parents gave her an allowance with two rules: $2.00 had to go into savings and $2.00 was earmarked for giving; she could choose what to do with the remainder.
“That’s how it was set up. I always had what we called ‘giving money,’” she said. “I love [New York city], I’m in the city all the time, and I remember going there was the first time I saw people who were living on the street. It always broke my heart, but it also opened my eyes of just how fortunate I am.”
Keira started saving up her giving money and using it to put together care packages that she and her family took to the city to distribute.
“I made something like 80 sandwiches the first time,” she recalled. “It was around Christmas, so the bags also had socks and gloves, some candy. We went and handed those out, and that’s what got me started.”
Today, even though she doesn’t get an allowance anymore, Keira puts a portion of her hard-earned paychecks away to maintain what is, essentially, a pantry on wheels in her car. She was inspired by a group of homeless men who she encounters regularly along her travels in Orange County.
“You have to think, how can I help? I have the money to do this. I don’t need more clothes for myself. Am I just going to spend this on Dunkin’? What can I do today to help someone?”
So, Keira shops regularly for comfort package items that include everything from personal care and hygiene products to non-perishable food items, like nuts and canned goods, that can be enjoyed without having to be stored in the cold or warmed up to serve. Oftentimes she’ll include a small amount of cash. Keira has even enlisted the help of her grandmother, who has been generously funding the purchase of warm socks for her kits.
She stops to hand out the packages any time she sees someone in need.
“It’s just a small bag of food, probably five things in it. That’s basically snack time for me, maybe my lunch. I gave one to this man who was so excited because he said that it would last him the whole week,” said Keira, clearly moved. “And that just… that touched me.”
Keira shared how dealing with health issues as a young child also showed her the power of empathy and compassion.
“I was a sick kid, in and out of the hospital,” she said. “And the nurses were just always so caring. One nurse from Westchester Medical Center touched my heart so much, that she’s actually the topic of my college essay.”
Keira said that being on the receiving end of so much compassion at such a young age opened her eyes to how much reaching out to somebody in the seemingly smallest ways can make an outsized impact on their life.
“Even with just a small gesture, you can really change how someone sees things; you can really help them,” said Keira. “You never know if someone’s on their last straw, so doing something – even just taking the time to talk to them – might give them one more straw to hold onto.”
Keira aspires to pay it forward in a career helping others as a pediatric oncology nurse.
“It’s a tough field on nurses, I know, but those kids need people who will be there for them,” Keira said. “I understand that they’re going through so much. I want to go to school, come out, and work in a children’s hospital.”
Keira has already started along her path toward a medical career. She joined the Warwick EMS Junior Corps when she was 14. Corps members, under the guidance of Senior Corps advisors, train in CPR, AED, and First Aid, and maintain their certifications. Over her three years of involvement, Keira has ascended to the role of Co-captain and is looking forward to beginning ride-alongs with Warwick’s emergency service providers.
Keira and her fellow Student Senate members will soon begin working with a local radio station partner to organize the annual toy drive, and she’s staying busy with Interact Club and its work with Warwick Valley Rotary on numerous projects, including holiday food drives.
“I’ve always wanted to work with people, whether that’s the packages, or nursing; you know, just care for people,” said Keira. “I think it’s how I was brought up, seeing the way my parents did things for me.”
Keira Harrison, Class of `25