Savonne Clark has always appreciated the importance of education and civil rights, values her mother instilled in her at an early age. She believes you need to be able to engage with your leaders, and, to engage with your leaders, you must be educated about your rights and opportunities. Since sophomore year, she has been part of the Student Equity Ambassador Leaders (SEALs) team, serving on the Mental Health Committee. She respected how each meeting with community builders would focus on different perspectives about events at each Fairfax County school. The committee always maintained a strong focus on open discussions and understanding different feelings. Ultimately, it was an organization that was always working collaboratively towards determining what changes were needed.

While serving on SEALS, Savonne learned of the value of outreach. Fairfax County Public Schools have many resources to support student mental health, but students often didn’t know about them. This would frequently lead to students trying to find help on their own and missing out on available opportunities. She worked to create a template for schools to use to display their school's mental health team, including counselors, psychologists and social workers, ensuring easy access for students. So by promoting outreach, Savonne helped students become more aware of the resources available to them.

Savonne is currently on the Access to Post-Secondary Education Committee of the SEALs team, where she is focused on promoting education as a critical part of enhancing students’ confidence and empathy. In her role, she is working hard on a letter-writing campaign in support of FCPS guidance counselors. She is providing templates for students to complete that advocate for the budget to reflect the valuable contributions counselors are providing to Mt. Vernon and other Fairfax County schools.

In her sophomore year, Savonne drew on her experience in the SEALs and her interest in civil rights to further focus on advocacy and outreach as a critical part of promoting peace. “If you don’t know your privileges and rights, then you can’t use them,” she said. Since then, she has been a member of the Global Leaders of Fairfax County program; an organization she has immense pride in, particularly their work on the 17 Rooms Project. Based on the 17 UN sustainable development programs, Savonne serves in Room 16, “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” as a co leader, focusing on topics that include access to quality education and a reduction in inequalities as it relates to FCPS students. She also continues to focus on the role of outreach in helping promote peace. While her focus is Room 16, she considers it critical that Global Leaders encourages the Rooms to work together. This collaborative approach by Global Leaders promotes all members achieving their goals together.

Savonne noted that “Local and national levels of government affect each other in a two-way loop. The more constituents understand about their institutions and systems, the more they can influence change.”

Next year, Savonne will be attending William and Mary on a full-ride scholarship from the Posse Foundation, something she credits her guidance counselor in helping her achieve. She said, “I think FCPS’s Guidance Counselors are one of its greatest resources and serve as a model of the philosophy that educating people on their options is one of the biggest differences someone can make in another person’s life.”

At W&M, Savonne plans to major in government on a pre-law track. “You need to understand the process of law to promote peace through politics at both a global and local level,” she said. “You can’t create policy if you don’t understand how international perception and geopolitics will drive local policy.”