Innovation Award Recipient Loves Literature, the Medical Field and Crumpets
Avid reader Shelby Barber draws inspiration from a favorite author, the always quotable John Green of “The Fault in Our Stars” fame.
“What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?” This line from Green’s novel, “Abundance of Katherines,” is among the quotes that speaks to Barber, who received the 2018 Military Child of the Year® Award for Innovation for her idea to help severe allergy sufferers, especially young children, administer medication more easily. The Operation Homefront award is presented by global technology and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which will assign a team to help her develop a plan for scaling her project.
Shelby also likes this Green quote from “Turtles All the Way Down”: “You’re both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You’re the narrator, the protagonist, and the side-kick. You’re the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody’s something, but you are also your you.”
Shelby says the statement addresses people’s potential. “We are all so much more than we think we are, but so many people depend on everyone else around them, when we all have so much strength inside,” she said.
Perhaps Shelby admires Green not only for his writing, but for his philanthropical efforts, his willingness to discuss his own obsessive-compulsive disorder to help destigmatize mental illness, and the free, educational YouTube channel he co-created with his brother, Hank. The brothers’ Project for Awesome has raised millions of dollars for numerous charities that “decrease the overall level of world suck.”
Like Green, Shelby, a high school senior, aspires to make change and give back. She volunteers for organizations including Habitat for Humanity, Special Olympics and March of Dimes, and received The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Young Womanhood Recognition for establishing “a pattern of progress in your life,” “serving others, and developing and sharing your gifts and talents.”
Shelby is a proponent of making military families and children more aware of all the resources available to help support them. She remembers realizing her life as a military child was different from civilians’ in middle school, “when peers didn’t want to be my friend because they knew I would be moving.”
Sometimes, outsiders get the wrong idea about what military life is like. It does not necessarily occur to them how difficult and challenging it can be — for both the child and the parent — when a parent is deployed for months, or how lonely it feels to move far from relatives and friends. “People just see the benefits and they assume it’s just easy and it’s not,” Shelby said.
Her father’s service is “an example of selflessness as my dad is willing to sacrifice his own life for others,” she said of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark Barber. “He has spent countless months away from us and does it because he wants to serve his country.”
That’s why Shelby advises other military kids to “make goals and follow through on them regardless of where you move to and who you have around you.”
After all, living in another country or on a distant base can be one of the best advantages of military life, Shelby said, helping families become more culturally aware and familiar with world affairs. She has loved living in Hawaii and England, where she discovered a new breakfast treat, crumpets.
Shelby, who wants to be a cardiac surgeon, may have her mother to thank if she realizes that goal someday. Elizabeth Barber taught her daughter the value of diligence, and “if you want something you have to work for it.”
See highlights from Shelby’s long list of achievements:
Meet all seven Military Child of the Year® recipients and be sure to join us on Facebook on Thursday, April 19 at 7 pm EST for a live feed of the very special awards gala honoring our outstanding Military Child of the Year® recipients. Thank you to our presenting sponsor United Technologies for making it possible. We’re also grateful to the following additional sponsors: Booz Allen Hamilton, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, MidAtlantic Broadband, La Quinta Inn & Suites, Veterans United Home Loans, Under Armour, Tutor.com and Military Times. #MCOY2018
