During a 5 minute break at honor band, Maddy Ephraim ‘21 and her friends had an idea, they were going to take a 5 minute power nap. After having a 4 hour practice and getting up at 6 in the morning they were exhausted, so they went to the back of the auditorium, lied down and covered their heads for 5 minutes. After being in band for so long, Ephraim has a lot of stories like this. “Currently [band] is kind of my main focus. [I do] lots of practicing and lessons.”

Ephraim’s whole family is full of musicians. “It’s kind of a family thing to play loud annoying instruments. I play clarinet, one of my sisters plays the drums and then the other one plays the trombone. It’s a lot, and it gets really loud.”

Ephraim explained that she plays the clarinet because her aunt played it. “Actually I didn’t really choose [the clarinet]” Ephraim clarifies, “in fifth grade when we were deciding what instrument to play it was between clarinet or saxophone and my mom came in and she said, ´Maddy, you are playing the clarinet because we own a clarinet and it’s easy.´ Now I’m glad I was forced into playing it, I can’t really see myself playing anything else.”

Alongside band, Ephraim also volunteers at the Coralville Public Library and has been since the beginning of 7th grade. “I was  [at the library] just most of my childhood and it was just a nice place and I figured that I could help,” Ephraim explains, then adds. “and volunteering has always been interesting for me.”

At the library Ephraim works customer service and is part of the Teen Advisory Board (TAB). The Board is comprised of a group of about 20 teens from 7th to 12th grade who help plan events and find ways to improve the library. Last summer Ephraim and her friend, Annabel Hendrickson ‘21, were able to create a program by themselves for the summer reading program. “It was like a 4 hour program and everyone loved it. It was pretty great.” Ephraim says, “It was a scavenger hunt race.”

Ephraim’s friend, Annabel Hendrickson, explained it in more detail. “We created a program called Amazing Race. It was based off the show Amazing Race, and we had the kids split into teams go on a scavenger hunt with various weird tasks, from opening a banana with your toes to doing a headstand for a minute. Each obstacle they completed, they got a flag, and the team with the most flags won.”

Hendrickson also explained the process, “We came up with the idea way early in the year, and started planning it then. We did some online planning first, then as it got closer to the date, we met with the TAB leader a couple times and put it all together.”

Ephraim used to volunteer at the Coralville Food Pantry last year and hopes to volunteer anywhere around the community that she can. “I hope to get more involved, it [volunteering] dwindled these past years because of school.”

Once when Ephraim was at the Food Pantry, she and the person she was working alongside were approached by another volunteer with a bag of crackers in hand.

“This worker came up with a bag of crackers and said ´try them, they’re really good´ we we’re like okay sure, free food right? And they were just these disgusting multigrain crackers but we wanted to be polite so we were just sitting there and they just gave us the bag saying ´You can have them, they’re really good.´ We just pushed them aside and they stayed there for the rest of the shift.” Ephraim said.

It’s not uncommon to get to bring home food after volunteering, sometimes the food is on the verge of expiring, so it gets taken home by volunteers instead of sent out.

Ephraim is always looking for ways to help people.  “Maddy is really responsible and caring, and she’s probably the most trustworthy person I know.” Hendrickson says, “She lends me textbooks and stuff when I forget mine, and she is always taking care of her sisters.”

Volunteering will continue to be a passion of Ephraim’s for a while. “[Volunteering] always makes me feel really good. It’s like I just come and I help people figure out what to do or help them some way if they’re struggling.”