BEST AND BRIGHTEST: Working at soup kitchen shifts teen’s perspective

TO OUR READERS: This is one in a series of stories about members of The Gazette's Best & Brightest Class of 2008.

Kelly Dotseth didn't feel appreciated that day as she volunteered at the Marian House Soup Kitchen, greeting people at the door while they waited in line.

She even repeated in her mind what the manager had thrown out: "Smile. You'll make more days than you think."

"For all the smiles I gave, I received glares, snorts, bags dumped at my feet with sneering instructions to put them in cubbies. Anything, it seemed, but kindness," she said. "I didn't understand these people."

Near closing time, a gray-haired man stumbled in and Dotseth reached out her arm to steady him.

"Thank you, young lady," he told her. As he walked away, he looked back and said, "And keep smiling. You remind me so much of my daughter."

"As I stared at the first embodiment of genuine thankfulness that I had encountered all day, a grin slowly crept onto my face," she said. "Maybe the manager was right."

As she headed to her car, she noticed a shopping cart in the parking lot. She recognized the cart from earlier as one she'd moved out of her way.

She realized that now a woman was sleeping in the bottom of it.

"Tears began to well up in my eyes as I thought of my suburban home," said Dotseth, 17. "A thought so profound struck me, I had to mull it over and over in my head. I had moved someone's house. The metal bars were all (she) had in terms of structural comfort."

She looked around the parking lot and saw bundles - not bundles of trash as they appeared to be at first glance, but people, she said.

"We've all been put on this earth. Just because one person wears Gucci fur and another wears Glad plastic doesn't make them two different species," she said.

Dotseth realized that maybe living life shouldn't be measured by personal achievements but rather by the effects someone has on others.

"To this day," she said, "I try my hardest to live life as fully as possible."

KELLY DOTSETH, Air Academy High School

Parents: Mike and Sylvia Dotseth

What's next: Luther College in Iowa

If you were given $1 million, tax-free, what would you do with it? "First, I'd pay off college. Then I'd probably figure a way to grow it by trying to get pledges and helping the situation in Darfur."

Other details: Colorado Springs Teen Court volunteer, mock trial captain, DECA hospitality and recreation marketing state champion, Outstanding Sophomore Marketing Student, Acting Against Current Tragedies in Other Nations member, church volunteer, pianist, tennis, Latin Dance Club