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Tejada, a native speaker of Spanish who was born in the Dominican Republic, uses her bilingual skills as a weekly volunteer at Person-to-Person.
She greets clients who speak only Spanish, and relays their needs to English-speaking volunteers and staff members.
Tejada has been a scholar resident in the Darien A Better Chance (ABC) program since 2011, and currently mentors younger students in the program.
At Darien High, she tutors other students, serves as a Big Sister mentor for new freshmen, is a class representative in the community council, involved in the Gay Straight Alliance and the environmental club, and was inducted into the National Honor Society last year.
Tejada, whose mother and two siblings live in the Bronx, N.Y., is also an intern at Rucci Law Group in Darien.
“Merlyn is an excellent example of a well-rounded, determined young woman and has an extremely bright future ahead of her,” Katie Egan, resident director of Darien A Better Chance, said in a press release.
Tejada requires three things of herself: that she gets every job done right, that she works hard, and that she enjoys her successes along the way, YWCA said in a statement.
Her passion is in the sciences and the interconnection of living things. She hasn’t yet picked her major for college but is weighing the environmental sciences as well as international affairs and pre-law.
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