Hi, my name is Jack Kraynak, and this is a website depicting my Eagle Project and I hope it inspires you to get involved in your local community!
For my project, I scheduled violin concerts at local nursing homes in my area. However, I had the realization that just playing the violin for senior citizens was trivial, and though a good project, would not personally impact the seniors enough.
Therefore, I added another aspect to my project in which I incorporated the residents’ living biographies that I would recognize in the form of ‘shout-outs’ during my concert.
I interviewed the seniors before, asking them simple questions like “Where did you grow up?”, or, “What is one piece of advice on life you would like to share?”. I shared their responses in between each song and asked the senior (who was in attendance) to stand up and be recognized. I then dedicated the next song to the seniors, and my group played a song for them based on their favorite type of music.
As the oldest of six kids and having to be a leader from the start, I am also embedded in a very large extended family with more than 50 cousins and second cousins many of them acting as mentors and teachers for me. This means that family contribution, family participation, and the meaning of family are central themes for me, running deep and extremely important in my life. Throughout high school, I have learned how to manage my time so I am able to handle my schoolwork, three years working at Chick-fil-a, lifelong Boy Scouts, the leader of our large Troop, First Chair in Violin, and babysitting my siblings while both my parents working full time. Another aspect of my leadership was my acting as a primary lead in a musical – The Savoy Company’s – Trial By Jury. Also, I was recognized with the Good Citizenship Award from the Philadelphia Union League, which is awarded to high school juniors to recognize hard work, honesty, courage, tolerance, and loyalty. A passion in my life some may not know about me is I love photography, and I share my photography on an Instagram with hundreds of followers. This year, I decided to not only do String Orchestra, but also get involved in Chorus at Germantown Academy to expand myself, and because I will then be performing on a tour across Europe in the Spring which includes, Poland, Germany, and Austria.
In high school, I worked as a summer lifeguard at Musser Scout Reservation and served as a CIT at Musser the year before. I am also extremely involved in sporting activities at my school, including basketball and cross country. Through my high school’s basketball program, the players are given the chance to volunteer and teach a clinic on the skills of basketball to young children. The most motivating factor is the extraordinary responsibility that arises for the volunteers during the sessions. The children legitimately see me, and all the other high school players, as coaches, who are endlessly experienced. Other than sports and scouts, I have been on the honor roll at Germantown Academy for every semester in high school.
Also, as can be seen from my Eagle Scout project, the violin has had a huge impact on my life. I am the concertmaster for Germantown Academy’s orchestra, which puts me in a position of leadership for all of the other musicians. I must organize the orchestra and guide them through our daily songs, and assist with points of improvement.
I plan to continue my involvement in basketball, music, and scouting throughout college. I am interested in a few fields of study including History, Technology, and possibly serving people in the field of Medicine as a highly specialized doctor with neuroscience or biomedical engineering combined with an MD. I find the field of AI (artificial intelligence) to offer a set of fascinating tools that can make a massive positive impact in the fields of history and Medicine to better serve people, and to help us as a society not repeat mistakes of the past, or to directly improve how our medical field service peoples’ lives and our society overall.
Within my career and in addition to my jobs of the future, I hope to positively impact my community with regular community service – hopefully continuing in the world of scouting and beyond! Also, through my experience of growing up as the oldest of six children, I recognize the beautiful nature of a large family and I wish to start a large family myself.