As I approached a milestone birthday and nearly ten years since graduating from American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), I found myself reflecting on the people and experiences that shaped my career — and thinking intentionally about how I want to give back to a community that invested so much in me. That reflection led me to launch the WCL Student Wellness Fund.

My fondest memories of AUWCL aren't tied to any one class or event — they're the relationships I built with classmates, professors, and mentors who challenged me intellectually while fostering a genuine sense of community. Two people in particular shaped how I think about giving back. AUWCL alumna Sharon Wolpoff, whom I met by chance during my first month of law school, showed me through her own generosity — including the Wolpoff Family Foundation's support of emergency funding for students facing financial hardship — that giving back isn't one-size-fits-all, and that an alumna can identify a need and help build something that didn't exist before. And during my 2L year, as president of AUWCL's Women's Law Association, I had the honor of presenting the Women and the Law Leadership Award to Judge Jeannie Hong, Maryland's first female Asian American judge — an experience that deepened my appreciation for representation, leadership, and service within our community.

Those relationships, along with my later work as a leader of the DC Metro Area Alumni Chapter, left me wondering how I might create something more direct and lasting for both current students and fellow alumni. That question became the WCL Student Wellness Fund.

My belief in wellness extends far beyond law school or legal practice. Emotional, physical, financial, and mental well-being are essential to living a healthy, meaningful life — and law students, in particular, often set that well-being aside under the pressure of grades, job searches, and the demands of legal training. Wellness isn't separate from professional success — it makes professional success sustainable.

The fund is built on that idea. Rather than treating wellness as a response to stress or burnout, I hope it helps foster a culture at AUWCL where wellness is understood as an essential part of personal and professional growth from day one. Over time, I envision the fund supporting opportunities that help students build healthy habits, develop resilience, and strengthen their sense of community — the same kind of community that made my own time at AUWCL so meaningful. And its reach doesn't have to stop at graduation: I hope it can eventually create new ways for alumni to stay engaged around wellness and lifelong well-being long after they've left campus.

Launching the fund during this period of personal reflection has made it especially meaningful to me. It represents an opportunity to invest directly in the future of a community that gave me so much, and my hope is that it becomes a lasting expression of AUWCL's commitment to helping students — and eventually alumni — thrive not only as legal professionals, but as people.

For me, giving back has evolved over time: it began with giving my time through alumni engagement, grew through the examples of people who showed me what thoughtful philanthropy can look like, and ultimately led me to ask what I could help create. The WCL Student Wellness Fund is my answer to that question.

I hope that, years from now, this initiative will be bigger than any one donor or any one generation of students — that it becomes part of the culture of AUWCL, a standing reminder that taking care of ourselves and one another is foundational to the lives and careers we are building.

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this: invest in your well-being as intentionally as you invest in your education and career. The relationships you build, the mentors who encourage you, and the ways you choose to give back will shape your life just as much as your professional accomplishments.

Donate to the WCL Student Wellness Fund here.