Hometown: Washington, PA.

Birthdate: Dec. 6th

Bio: Tara is a 2011 graduate of La Roche College majoring in Professional Writing and a 2007 graduate of Canon-McMillan High School. For about three years from 2007-2010, she wrote for The Almanac, Xpressions page. This past year, Tara served a term of service with KEYS ServiceCorp AmeriCorp where she worked as a Community Liaison running social groups and teaching computer literacy classes to adults, as well as becoming their Volunteer Coordinator for the Oakland Food Pantry. Tara is both nervous and excited to start this new chapter in her life. She is now realizing how the things she learned abut community in her term of service, comes to play in her own hometown.

Interests/Hobbies: Tara loves everything about music, both listening and playing. She is currently learning how to play acoustic guitar, and plays a little bit of piano and keyboard, but she mostly enjoys singing. Tara also enjoys writing, in many forms, but specializes in both modernistic poetry and Journalism. In her spare time, (although, she doesn't really know what that means anymore) Tara enjoys doing photography, volunteering, and seeing plays.

Religion: Coming from a background of believing in a  higher power, to becoming baptized while attending La Roche, in the Christian-Catholic faith. Tara uses her faith by devouting herself into a sense of how music and psychology play to a factor into said faith. She considers herself more of a spiritual person rather than religious anymore however.

Her Values: One of Taras' favorite quotes is:"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” We have the power to change the world, it's up to us to decide how we use it. She uses this quote as her way to live out her life. She wants to continue, as she has always done, proving and inspiring people through not just word, but action, that we can do all through our inner strength and power.

Local Issues of Interest: Poverty/Homelessness, Public Transportation, Education on both the Secondary and Collegiate levels, Music Education, funding issues for programming in the non-profit organizations

Career Interests: Journalism for a newspaper or online blog, and/or working in the non-profit sector as a Development Specialist working on grants to support programs within the organization and create major fundraising events.