Most mornings, Marysol Valle is up early. She takes the Metrolink train from Fullerton in Orange County to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, then a trolley to USC, and then walks about 15 minutes to her destination.

No, she’s not going to work. She’s coming to volunteer with 826LA at Manual Arts High School, offering help to college-bound seniors with their personal statements. The La Habra, California, native is a graduate of USC and recognizes the importance of encouraging the students from the South L.A. campus to strive for more.

Marysol Valle, who has volunteered at Manual Arts High since the 826LA satellite site’s inception a year ago, helps a student with his personal statement.

“It’s so important to give back, especially coming from a minority background and working with minority students,” said Valle, who also worked with USC’s Joint Education Project. “I’d have parents come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for helping my kid.’ [She sees me], this Mexican girl going to USC, and she told me it was nice for her daughter to see that. That [conversation] with the parent kind of motivated me and reinforced my belief to volunteer and give back to this community. It’s the same background of where I came from.”

While at USC, Valle majored in journalism and minored in human rights. Soon after graduating, she joined the Peace Corps and served in South Africa for two years. Still eager to travel the world, Valle attended grad school in England, and a year ago earned her master’s in human rights at the University of Sussex.

Where she comes from, “no one does that.” But Valle, whose ultimate career goal is to do research for Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, wants to help students realize that it’s okay to break from the norm.

Valle, who currently is applying for doctoral programs, also said there are too many missed opportunities for high schoolers to know the ins and outs of college applications and scholarships. That’s why she’s taken it upon herself to bring fliers and materials to bring students up to speed.

“826LA helps a lot with that,” she said. “They help inform these students, and they show them the opportunities, and they actually help them apply for college. Maybe students weren’t thinking of applying, or were maybe just applying to community college. I feel like 826LA really motivates students. ‘Here’s something better. You can push yourself further.’ That’s something that I totally support.”

For Valle, the best part of volunteering with 826LA is the individual students that she meets. At a quick glance, these high schoolers may be passed over as just kids, but when you get to speak with them you learn that they are so much more.

“They have their own experiences, their own voices, and it’s amazing, some of these stories that you hear, and that’s what I like about this school,” Valle said. “. . . I’m just blown away by the perseverance and the independence of these students. With the neighborhoods that they come from, sometimes there’s a lot of drugs and gangs. They really mature quicker than students in other areas because they’re forced to see these things every day.”

By simply asking the students about their home lives or hobbies, Valle and other 826LA volunteers who help with personal statements are able to gain an idea of how their past has instilled in them a resolve to improve their future.

“When you’re asking these questions as we’re trying to have them write this essay, I feel like sometimes it’s the first time they’re thinking of it because no one has ever asked,” Valle said. “I’m humbled by all their experiences.”

Personal statement season is in full swing at high schools throughout Los Angeles. If you’d like to volunteer with this or other programs at 826LA, click here.