By: Faith Monteiro
Many kids currently attending Oliver Ames High School were born and raised in Easton, Massachusetts. But not this senior, Hanna Pineo, who was born in a small town outside of Chicago named Cary. Very similar to Easton and its relation to Boston, but very different people. Since she was eight when they made the big move to Massachusetts, but thankfully it was very easy because of how open to new friends young children are.
“Illinois has always felt more like home then Massachusetts ever has,” says Pineo as she reminisces about her life in Illinois and the transition to Massachusetts.
Pineo always thinks about her life in Illinois and has always envisioned herself possibly moving back after college to be with her half-sister that’s still in Illinois. She now lives in Easton with her two full siblings and her parents. She goes back and visits often between her busy running schedule since she moved here at age eight.
“I do cross country more for the social aspect of it, I am not really a fan of the running,” she says while trying to hold back her laughter of thinking about her Cross Country shenanigans. Pineo runs for Cross Country, Winter Track and Spring Track for Oliver Ames, but doesn’t run for the joy of running apparently.
In fact, she doesn’t like running at all, she does these sports to be closer with her friends and share experiences with them. Pineo doesn’t see herself running in college, or running at all past highschool as she wants to focus on working with special needs children.
“I’ve always wanted to work with special needs children, and I plan on eventually doing something related to that for my career,” Hanna says as she whole-heartedly explains why and what she currently does related to working with the special education department.
Currently, Pineo participates in a few classes and helps out the Special Ed department here at Oliver Ames where she has now created special bonds with the students and teachers. Hanna intends to graduate college with a psychology degree and work with high school special needs students after college along with joining the Peace Corps eventually.
“Not only do I want to work with children here in the United States, I would love to get the opportunity to travel and work with children around the world,” as she smiled at the thought of being able to help these children while doing what she loves to do, travel.
Hanna is amazed at the opportunities that are afforded to volunteers through the Peace Corps and really hopes that one day she can be allowed the opportunity to be with these kids and travel around the world at the same time.
“Children born with special needs never asked to be born different, and they sure didn’t ask to be treated differently by their schoolmates, and just that motivates me a lot,” Hanna explains as she goes on a tangent about how grateful she is being able to work with them.
Hanna appreciates working with these children because every day you get to experience them improving and getting better at everyday things we take advantage of. Every day she sees “normal” students taking little things for granted, but these kids in special education classes appreciate every single little improvement they make every day. No matter what she finds a way of working with these students with her busy schedule of working as well.
“I’ve worked at Subway for a few years now and it actually unexpectedly taught me a lot of life lessons, whoever knew Subway would do that”, Hanna says as she bursts into laughter talking about her anything but ordinary experiences working at Subway.
Hanna believes that working at Subway has given her some fundamental experiences of working with people in life, dealing with people you might not want to, and has taught her to work under pressure with few mess-ups.
“Grow through what you go through my best friend has always said,” Hanna says as she smiles at the thought of hearing her friend say it over and over again.
Hanna has been through a lot, just like every senior has she explained. When faced with what she wants to do in life, applying to colleges, running, and dealing with classwork is a lot to juggle at this age. But she takes that one quote very seriously and focuses on growing as a human first while conquering all her challenges in the meanwhile.
