Return to home page

To see where Monzong Cha volunteers at, visit North Memorial Medical Center's Web site.

Take a look at the list of activities and clubs offered at Monzong Cha's school, Roosevelt High School. 

Student provides leadership to peers, care to patients

Listen to an audio version of this story.

You can find her delivering flowers or water to patients at the hospital. Maybe she’s helping raise money for needy families. Other days she’s organizing school events for her peers. Or maybe she’s pulling out the camera she carries to snap a picture of a scene that catches her eye.

You would think the little free time Monzong Cha, 16, of Minneapolis, has would be highly anticipated.

Not so.

“I do have a little free time. Everything’s well balanced,” she said modestly. “But I kind of wish I was more busy.”

Born in California, Cha moved to Minneapolis in third grade and will be a junior at Roosevelt High School in fall. She didn’t waste any time getting involved in extracurricular activities and educational experiences.

Her latest adventure was training to become a certified nurse assistant.

Graduating from the three-month course in May took hard work and long hours, Cha said. The course, at Minneapolis Community & Technical College, ended with three weeks of clinical practice from 3:30 to 9 p.m.

“It really ate up my life,” she said.

But Cha is used to a busy lifestyle. While explaining the many activities she’s involved in, she said her friends often tease her about how busy she is.

“’How come you get such good grades, and you’ve involved in 50 things at once?’” she said her friends ask her.

Cha will lead the school as vice president of the Student Council and the National Honor Society. She’s held numerous leadership roles with the clubs in the past, as well as treasurer of the Hmong Student Association. The last two years she’s volunteered her time at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minn.

“I really love volunteering, so I always go extra (beyond scheduled hours),” she said.

Cha also enjoys writing, but with her school lacking a student newspaper, her experience mainly consists of creative writing for classes. She especially enjoys writing about her family. Recently she wrote a class paper on the effects the Vietnam War had on her family, who lived in Northern Laos.

During interviews with her family, she learned how a reporter often has to dig for details.

“It was pretty challenging because I was supposed to do an interview with my mom, but she was just so general,” Cha said. “Basically she told me that they just went through the forest, up the hills and that was it. And I’m like, ‘Didn’t you cross a river?’ And she’s like, ‘Oh yeah.’ … And I always have to dig very deep into it.”

Growing up as the youngest of eight children, Cha has the added bonus of learning from her siblings.

“Being the youngest I’ve got to say it’s pretty good to learn from the mistakes of the elders,” she said. “You know what to do. They tell you what to do.”

But it’s too soon to tell what direction her interests will lead her.

“I don’t find a big passion in journalism yet,” she said.

Since dipping her feet in the medical field, Cha said becoming a paramedic who rides in helicopters could top the list.

“Flying to the hospital – that’d be cool,” she said.

Our Sponsors