Evaluate my NHS application essay please!!!

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

The writing prompt was: Explain in detail how you would carry out a specific service project to benefit your community.
It was supposed to be answered in 200-300 words, but my essay exceeded to 369. Do you guys think that’s okay? If not, feel free to take out anything unneeded or rephrase things to make the essay shorter. Here’s the essay:

If I had to carry out a specific service project to benefit my community, I would choose to host an Easter egg hunt for the children at a local shelter with a large backyard and/or playground. Children are in shelters due to their family being underprivileged, so little things like egg hunts could be a luxury they don’t get to experience often. I would love to able to bring the joy and happiness to those children through something like this. In order to host this event, I would first need to choose which local shelter I would like to use.  The shelter chosen would have to not exceed over 100 children, since this would be my first time organizing such an event, and the expenses could quickly grow if there are too many children attending.
Then, I would find the person in charge of the chosen shelter so I could propose my idea of the Easter egg hunt. The proposal would be well planned in order to relate to the owner my purpose of hosting this event, as well as my plans on how I will do it. After receiving permission from the owner, I would then take inventory on all the things I would need for the egg hunt. Assuming no more than 100 children were attending, I would need approximately 1,000 plastic Easter eggs, along with about $50 worth of small candy. Since 1,000 Easter eggs can be bought with $80, the total price for the event would be approximately $130. In order to get the materials, I would fundraise and accept donations from any willing participant.
On the day of the hunt, I would arrive at the shelter early in the morning. Then, with the help of some others, we would place the Easter eggs all around the backyard or playground. At around noon, the hunt would start and the children would be released to go collect the eggs. Adults and parents would be around supervising their children to make sure everyone is safe. Finally, after the Easter egg hunt was over, I would make a report of how successful the event went so I could see if I wanted to do it again next year.
2

I’m going to be a bit nit-picky here, so feel free to choose which parts you actually want to change.

“If I had to carry out a specific service project …”
The wording here makes it sound as if you would only carry out this project if you were required to; try changing “If I had to” to “If I were to” or changing it up some more to say “The service project I would carry out is…”

“Children are in shelters due to their family being underprivileged, so little things like egg hunts could be a luxury they don’t get to experience often.”
Stating the reason children are in shelters is unnecessary; you could shorten it to “These underprivileged children don’t get to experience a luxury like egg hunts often.”

“I would love to able to bring the joy and happiness to those children through something like this.”
I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you want to help these children, but if you want to lower your word count you might want to cut out this sentence. The essay will still flow well without it.

“…I would first need to choose which local shelter I would like to use.”
Again, another minor issue with wording. You seem to be objectifying the shelter you would choose by including the word “use.” Try wording it as “…I would first need to choose a local shelter.” (Which also cuts down on the word count.)

“…have to not exceed over 100 children.”
More minor wording. Using both “exceed” and “over” is repetitive, keep one. I suggest keeping “exceed” since it would require less wording.

“…take inventory on all the things…”
This might have been a typo, I’m not sure, but it should be “of” instead of “on.”

“I would fundraise and accept donations from any willing participant.”
I don’t know if I am understanding this correctly, but if this event is for a shelter, I don’t believe the participants would be able to donate funds. perhaps you meant doner?

“…around supervising their children…”
Since this is talking about both parents and adults, change “their” to “the.”

One thing that you seem to have drastically underestimated is the amount of eggs you would need. If you have 100 kids and 1000 eggs that’s only 10 eggs per child. If you have ever seen an egg hunt you have probably seen how many eggs a child collects, and it’s not 10. Either bring down the number of kids or increase the number of eggs.

If you really do intend to do this, you could try to go to egg hunts around town the year before and collect used eggs from those, it would give you more eggs and free up funds to use on more candy. I think this is an amazing idea, it would be really great experience for the kids and things like these are really fun to do. Aside from the good feelings, it would also look great on college applications as a community project.

Sorry for making this so long, this was honestly a really good essay and idea. Though now that I think about it, you might have already submitted the essay since you posted this a week ago. If you have already turned it in, sorry for responding so late. :slight_smile:

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@PinguisInsanus Yes, unfortunately I have already submitted the essay. However, your critiques are amazing, and I sure do wish I had been able to see this before submitting it. Thanks for your time and help. If I ever need to use this essay again, I will be sure to use your critiques. <3