Giving back shaped Visitation student’s volunteering and shapes her goal of being an engineer
Volunteering on Saturdays for her high school and on weekday afternoons for her former elementary school are all part of what Rehema Kimathi calls a “give-back mentality” that also shaped her leadership roles at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington and shapes her future career goals as an engineer.
“It’s just the way my parents have instilled those values (of giving back) in me,” said Kimathi, a member of Georgetown Visitation’s class of 2025 who is the daughter of Martin and Scolastica Kariithi.
The D.C. resident who is 17 also has two younger sisters, Imani who is 12 and Taraji who is 6, and a younger brother Riziki who is 4. Kimathi was born in Kenya and moved to the United States with her family when she was 3 years old.
When she was a seventh grader at St. Anthony Catholic School in Washington, Kimathi began attending Visitation’s Saturday School program, in which students from that Catholic high school serve as mentors to seventh grade girls from eight participating D.C. middle schools, assisting them with reading and math enrichment and hands-on academic exercises and joining them for fun activities. Then as a Visitation junior and senior, Kimathi volunteered with the Saturday School as a mentor and friend to seventh graders in the program, building a relationship with them.