Lauren Russell has always been ambitious and aspired to show it. She is a junior at Peninsula High School, and one of her recent achievements is starting Model UN.

Russell is the president of the club and does her best to make everyone feel welcome. One of her main goals is to help people understand the issues going on in the world and how they can help fix them.

“I started Model UN because when I entered high school, I was really looking forward to this club, but I heard that it was discontinued. So I waited until junior year to start it back up, because this seemed like a really good opportunity for me to show my leadership skills, and it provided other people with an opportunity to speak up [and] have a voice,” Russell said.

The Model UN club at Peninsula will pick a country to represent. They will meet with other schools to discuss issues not only in that country, but the whole world, and how to fix them. They hope to make an impact by not only talking about global issues, but also taking action to correct them.

“It’s really fun, the people are super nice, and they explain everything really well,” said Siobhan Keenan, a member of Model UN.

Russell has put a lot of effort into starting up Model UN again. She’s had to figure out how to work it into the week without affecting other clubs, and also has to plan each meeting and run them. Contacting other Model UN clubs will be a part of figuring out conferences, and overall a lot of her time is put into this club. She’s hoping that Model UN will impact Peninsula in the best way possible, by informing the students about what they can do to make their future the best it can be.

Russell is a hardworking student who strives to do the best in all she does. She is very involved with the school, participating in Speech and Debate, Environmental Club, and UNICEF on top of being president of Model UN. Her classes include AP Statistics, AP Chemistry, AP Seminar, and AP US History. Her dream is to attend Stanford to major in Biology after senior year.

Everyone you talk to about her, whether close friends or classmates, will tell you that she is a very sophisticated, good-natured, and supportive person.

“She can be serious, quick, and smart when needed- and she will go far with that. But she is also one of the goofiest, laid-back, and kindest [people] I know- and that will take her even farther!” said Riley Bass, one of Russell’s good friends.

Russell is hoping to inspire this generation of students to make a change in the way the world is run. She is excited for how the year will go for Model UN, and encourages others to join.

“Model UN is really cool because it teaches the students lifelong skills for public speaking, and learning about international diplomacy, and current events. Which [is] super cool, and now that it’s started up, the meetings have been going really well, and we’ve all been learning about countries, and the conferences are going to be super cool, and you guys should join.”