For Hayes’ Gibbs, service is a lifestyle

Miriam Gibbs

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Com­mu­nity ser­vice is a big part of Delaware Hayes’ Miriam Gibbs’ life. It all began with the Girl Scouts, or Girl Guides as they are called in Canada where Mariam hails from. She came to the United States when she was 7.

“I’m try­ing to make com­mu­nity ser­vice a life style,” she said. That goal is reflected in Miriam’s busy sched­ule. She reg­u­larly works at the Free Store, help­ing with Peo­ple In Need (PIN) activ­i­ties, and is also work­ing to start a youth group for men­tally ill teens at Safe Har­bor Delaware.

In addi­tion, Miriam runs a non-profit called Delaware Free Cakes for Kids. Since March 2011, she has baked 20 birth­day cakes for chil­dren who might not oth­er­wise have had a cake. Learn­ing about the national pro­gram and with fond mem­o­ries of her own child­hood birth­day cakes (“My mom is an excel­lent baker.”), Miriam began her own branch in Delaware. With posters around the city, she receives calls with requests and then bakes and dec­o­rates accord­ing to the child’s wishes.

“I’ve met some amaz­ing peo­ple,” she said. “I kind of feel like it’s pay­ing forward.”

Jen­nifer Pol­lard is Miriam’s guid­ance counselor.

“Miriam’s gen­uine con­cern for oth­ers can be evi­denced in her ser­vice to oth­ers. Miriam vol­un­teers at the Com­mon Ground Free store and has been doing so for more than two years. For two years, she was also was a Girl Scout Camp coun­selor, vol­un­teer con­struc­tion worker and a vol­un­teer pro­gram leader at COSI,” Pol­lard said.

With senior year half over, Miriam is “hun­ker­ing down this year,” to make cer­tain she is ready for next year. She is excited about the prospect of col­lege and has decided to attend Kala­ma­zoo Col­lege in Michigan.

“It’s amaz­ing,” Miriam said. She is pleased with the social sci­ences cur­ricu­lum and the strong psy­chol­ogy pro­gram there as she con­sid­ers a future in either coun­sel­ing or teach­ing after obtain­ing her doctorate.

She has already taken psy­chol­ogy at Ohio Wes­leyan and loved it, but does not want to rule out either soci­ol­ogy or anthro­pol­ogy yet as career pos­si­bil­i­ties until she takes course­work in these areas.

“The words that I would use to describe Miriam are intel­li­gent, artic­u­late, mature, and musi­cally gifted,” Pol­lard con­tin­ued. “One of the qual­i­ties that I like best about Miriam is that she is able to advo­cate for her­self. She is will­ing to have tough con­ver­sa­tions with oth­ers to get them to under­stand her point of view. Miriam’s expe­ri­ences in her OWU courses have helped Miriam decide to pur­sue a career in psy­chol­ogy. Miriam’s abil­i­ties to artic­u­late clearly and advo­cate as well as her gen­uine con­cern for oth­ers will be assets to her in this field.”

Kevin West teaches advanced place­ment history.

“Miriam is an excel­lent stu­dent who is mature beyond her years,” West said. “She is focused and dili­gent in the pur­suit of her per­sonal goals. She takes a per­sonal inter­est in her school sub­jects, not merely because she wants to do well, but because she wants to have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of our world. Her curi­ous mind and work habits will take her far in her cho­sen field.”

Pol­lard also noted that Miriam is musi­cally gifted. “She began play­ing the piano and tak­ing viola lessons in 2003. Her musi­cal resume is exten­sive. She is a mem­ber of our school’s Orches­tra, the Wor­thing­ton Cham­ber Music Con­nec­tion, South­ern Maine String Acad­emy and Tri-M Music Honor Soci­ety. Miriam also con­ducts pri­vate viola lessons for younger children.”

Stacy Lemke, orches­tra direc­tor at Hayes, said, “Miriam’s pas­sion is her com­mit­ment to the com­mu­nity of Delaware. She is extremely ded­i­cated to help­ing oth­ers. Miriam has good ideas and is a strong leader when it comes to vol­un­teerism and mak­ing things hap­pen. As the cur­rent Hayes Orches­tra Pres­i­dent she is an excel­lent liai­son between the direc­tors and the students.”

Miriam hopes to con­tinue her music at the col­lege level, not­ing there are great oppor­tu­ni­ties for music at Kala­ma­zoo as well.

Play­ing the viola since she was 9, she chose the instru­ment because “I wanted to be dif­fer­ent.” She said while music is still a huge part of her life, she is cut­ting back this year to focus more on what will help for college.

Admit­ting she is not an ath­lete, sports still are a focus in her life; she is a soc­cer ref­eree for DYAA soc­cer. Play­ing the sport from age 7 until fresh­man year, she began ref­er­ee­ing at that time.

She also played ten­nis her sopho­more year “just for fun.”

While music is part of Miriam’s down­time regime, she con­fesses her hobby is her pets. She has four — two chin­chillas, a guinea pig named Mozart and a 7-pound black New Zealand house rab­bit named Winifred.

Sci­ence fair is another area where Miriam excels. She was selected as one of six from Ohio to attend the 2009 Inter­na­tional Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Fair in Reno, Nev.

“My project was not at the cal­iber of most there,” she said, reflect­ing on meet­ing other com­peti­tors from around the world. She said the expe­ri­ence was “cul­tur­ally, very immersing.”

Look­ing ahead to sum­mer, Miriam real­izes she will be busy get­ting ready for col­lege, but also hopes it can be some­what relax­ing as she plans to spend time with her family.

She offers the fol­low­ing advice for others.

“I’ve always lived by the golden rule. It’s the best advice to give any­one else — the golden rule. Be nice,” she said, adding, “Do what you are pas­sion­ate about.”

She also said that with meet­ing a wide vari­ety of peo­ple, “it’s not always easy. You have to work to get along with and accept peo­ple, so it’s impor­tant to have a kind and accept­ing mindset.”

Miriam is the daugh­ter of Lisa Tabak and Lisle Gibbs of Delaware.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Jan 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.