Helping others is just part of her DNA

(MOLALLA) — For some, helping others is simply a chore. For others, it’s a life’s passion.

Feel free to squarely put Molalla High School senior Kayden Harris in the latter category. For as long as she can remember, she’s been acutely aware of a desire to help others around her.

That trait earned Harris this year’s Pamplin Media Group Amazing Kid for the Molalla area. For the 18-year-old, there’s no other way to live her life.

“Ever since I was itt-bitty, I just wanted to take care of the kids around me,” she explained. “I’ve always had this motherly instinct, and that has generated my career path: pediatrician.

“I don’t know why my brain works like that,” she added. “I don’t want people around me to get hurt or be inconvenienced. I just want to do my best to help people.”

Harris said that helping people has always brought her joy, whether teaching lessons at the Molalla Aquatic Center, giving teammates rides during swim or tennis season, or simply helping a friend at work with rides for her daughter to school. She’s just wired to pitch in and help.

“I just enjoy doing those types of things - helping others,” she said.

Harris followed in some big footsteps this year at Molalla High as she coordinated the Share the Love program, which raises money for needy families. The program raises well over six figures annually, and the process of planning and pulling it off successfully each year takes a lot of teamwork. Harris said she really enjoyed being around that.

“Our leadership class runs that, and it’s such a great opportunity to learn,” she said. “Everyone is committed and pushing you to get better. That has helped my communication skills really improve.

“Share the Love is such a proud moment when it’s finished, then we hand it off to the next generation,” she added. “There’s such a huge part about figuring out how to work with people you may not know very well and helping them be the best they can be within the team. It’s really rewarding in that way.”

For Harris, the rewards of giving of herself flow through much of what she does day-to-day.

Her swim career started very young as a club swimmer, while her tennis career started as a freshman in high school. Both have offered valuable lessons that she is excited to take into the next phase of her life.

“In swimming, there’s such a different atmosphere between club and high school teams,” she said. “The high school team really has a family atmosphere, and they care for you no matter what. For me, relying on other people is hard for me at times, but the swim team atmosphere has taught me how great it can be. Tennis taught me how to keep pushing and to keep at it, or it will never work out. You have to do that with anything, or it won’t be the best version it can be.”

With high school graduation very much in sight, Harris is looking to her future. And the future will take her to Linfield University where she will study biochemistry as she heads into premed studies. From there, she will look to medical school to become a pediatrician.

“When I was six, I realized this is what I wanted to do,” she said. “I had this intriguing interest in the medical field. It’s so interesting to learn about the human body and the brain – I find it fascinating. I’m taking a college chemistry class right now, and the other day, I figured out how soap works on a molecular level. That was so cool.”

Just about as cool as helping others.