Names in the News: Ariel Travis

Name, age, year at : Ariel Travis, 18, graduated in June

What school activities you are involved in? I started Project Build. We’re a large volunteer army of students (from Heights High). We volunteer with community organizations to do hands-on projects that benefit the community. We’ve worked with Habitat for Humanity helping to build houses. We worked with Community Greenhouse Partners to help build greenhouses ... to support the local food movement. We’ve worked on the Coventry playground and helped paint, repair and clean up the playground over there. We’ve got over 250 people subscribed to information updates and we’ve had over 150 volunteers who are Heights High students. Over the summer we’re going to start expanding to include other people as well.

I was on the tennis team freshman, sophomore and junior year and on the wrestling team senior year.

What’s the most important extracurricular activity you participate in and why? Project Build. I wanted to form a group for people to get together and help benefit the community through hands-on projects, and that idea just really took off. People kept on coming, and there was this huge momentum. People love being able to give back in a beautiful, real way and the movement just exploded because of that.

Favorite academic class and why: My favorite class I’d say was comparative politics. I learned some very important things about leadership in that class.

What do you like most about Heights High? What makes it special? The diversity of people there and how so many different types of people succeed in their own way.

What accomplishment are you most proud of? Project Build

What are your plans after high school? I have a lot of college credit (through the Post Secondary Enrollment Options Program.) My goal is to discover myself and have a lot of adventure and travel and find out what my passion is.