White House Author

As a first-generation college student at the University of Texas- Brownsville, Sanjuana Zavala holds back $50 from every paycheck and $200 from every scholarship—all to protect and save the lives of mothers and babies she will never meet. It’s her way of supporting The Eliminate Project, a partnership between Kiwanis International and UNICEF to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus from the face of the Earth. When it comes to service, Sanjuana gets creative in order to get others involved with the help of local city efforts like Keep Brownsville Beautiful. As a member of Circle K International—a Kiwanis service program for university students—she led a crayon-recycling effort, inspiring Brownsville’s elementary schools to donate used or unwanted crayons, which were then sorted, peeled, melted and molded into new crayons for children in need.