Park City School District celebrates graduate whose service spanned three continents

Abigail Bailey, Park City High School graduate, was recognized by the Park City School District for completing 448 hours of community service. Photo: Abigail Bailey

PARK CITY, Utah — When Park City High School senior Abigail Bailey boarded a plane for Uganda last May, she knew she would miss some of the final weeks of her last semester. Despite this, she went anyway.

Bailey, 18, worked at a makeshift pharmacy at pop-up medical clinics run by the iHelp Foundation, a humanitarian group serving communities in rural Uganda. “I caught on pretty quickly, learning all the medical names for the drug store medications and how to read the medical prescription that the doctors wrote on the diagnostic sheets,” Bailey said. “Since I was good at it, worked fast, and was willing to help, I stayed with the pharmacy for the rest of the work week. I found that I really enjoyed it.”

That trip, along with years of volunteering that preceded it, helped Bailey log 448 hours of service over four years of high school, including 268 hours during her senior year alone, according to the McGuire Family Foundation. This total does not include the time she spent in Uganda after the Park City Student Service Award deadline had passed.

This fall, the Park City School District Board of Education recognized Bailey as the recipient of the 2024–25 Park City Student Service Award. This honor was created by McGuire’s daughter, Katie, and is funded by the McGuire Family Foundation in partnership with the Park City Education Foundation. “It is incredible,” said foundation president Kim McGuire. “When you think about it, the next two kids had 326 hours, and the one after that had 257 hours. It’s just remarkable.”

Bailey grew up in a family where service was an integral part of daily life. As a child, she often accompanied her parents on service projects with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “When I was really young, starting around six years old, I frequently went with my parents to do service with the LDS Church,” she said. “I would tag along for highway cleanups, tie blankets, assemble care packets, and similar projects.”

After the family moved to Park City, her father, with a few other dedicated parents, restarted the local Boy Scouts troop. Although Bailey never earned badges herself, she participated in many projects. “I was involved in pretty much all the major service projects and Eagle projects for the Scouts over the past few years,” she said. “I also attended most meetings with my dad and brothers and helped organize badges and awards for the Scouts.”

In sixth grade, Bailey joined the National Junior Honor Society at Ecker Hill Middle School and later the National Honor Society at Park City High School. On her own initiative, she expanded her volunteering beyond church and Scouts, working with organizations like the Christian Center of Park City, the National Ability Center, EATS/Summit Community Gardens, Park City High School student council, and through pro bono tutoring. “I spent a lot of time volunteering, so it became a part of my life just like any other sport or hobby,” she said.

The summer before her senior year, Bailey participated in a Humanitarian Experience (HXP) trip to Udonthani, Thailand, where she helped build and plaster a new school for underprivileged children while spending time playing games and practicing English with students. “We mixed concrete and plaster and applied it to the entire interior and exterior,” she said. “Seeing the school fully plastered and comparing it to how we started was extremely gratifying.”

One moment in Thailand stood out for her: a 4-year-old boy named Urt, whom she befriended on the worksite. “At one point, we were playing, and he gestured to his mouth, indicating he was in pain,” Bailey recalled. “He quickly returned to playing, but it stayed with me because that was never something I had to worry about. Even in pain, all the children I interacted with maintained a great attitude and enjoyed the simple pleasures they had.”

The Thailand trip confirmed Bailey’s desire to do more. “My seminary teacher, Lisa Sipple, frequently spoke about her experiences with a group called iHelp that engaged in medical humanitarian work in various places around the world,” Bailey said. “Eventually, I gathered the courage to ask her if I could join her on the next trip, and she immediately agreed.”

In Uganda, Bailey helped distribute medications, take vital signs, and conduct MUAC screenings for malnutrition at child protection facilities. One patient in particular — an elderly woman in her late 90s — highlighted for Bailey the stark differences in access to healthcare. “The translator told me that she had walked over six kilometers to reach our pop-up clinic with her very young grandchild,” Bailey said. “That was shocking to me, as in America, access is much easier, and people often visit the doctor for far less. It showed me how driven the people of Uganda are and how determined they are to seek the help they know they need.”

McGuire noted that when she called one of Bailey’s volunteer coordinators to verify her hours, the feedback was noteworthy. “Other young people came on this trip that she was leading, and Abigail was the one who leaned in and stepped forward,” McGuire said she was told. “Others were somewhat intimidated by the experience, but Abby took charge.”

Bailey’s senior-year schedule was packed even before her trip to Uganda. She competed on the varsity debate, tennis, and theater teams and served as the president of the Psychology and Psi Alpha clubs. “It was tricky balancing my extracurricular activities with my service commitments, but I enjoyed it and was dedicated to it,” she said. “I also like to stay busy and achieve as much as I can.”

McGuire stated that the Student Service Award recognizes a combination of commitment and humility. “Kids are so deserving,” she said. “There are students who volunteer just to graduate; they tick the box, which helps with college admissions and job prospects. But then other kids volunteer for a deeper purpose. It ignites something within them that they may not have realized they had.”

The Park City Student Service Award emerged from this recognition. In 2018, McGuire’s older daughter, Sarah, was graduating from Park City High School, while her younger sister, Katie, sat in the audience watching classmates receive academic and activity awards. “Katie watched the ceremony and turned to me, saying, ‘Mom, there are all these amazing kids up there getting recognized and awarded, and they receive graduation cords, but I know there’s a whole group of kids who haven’t been seen,'” McGuire recalled.

Katie, who had logged years of service through the National Charity League Summit County, wanted to support “the kids I volunteer alongside every day.” A few months later, she and her mother pitched an idea to then-superintendent Jill Gildea: an honor cord for students who volunteer. Before they could elaborate, McGuire asked Gildea if there was anything she hoped to see in Park City that didn’t currently exist.

“Miraculously, Dr. Gildea responded, ‘I saw a student service award back in Connecticut, and it was incredible. I’ve always wanted to implement something like that here in Park City,'” McGuire recalled. “We were thrilled.”

With support from the superintendent, former Park City High Principal Roger Arbabi, and the Park City Education Foundation, Katie researched best practices, developed an application process, and launched the award in 2019. She managed it through high school and into college while serving on the UServeUtah student board. “Roger told her to accept that it might be messy in the beginning until everything was organized,” McGuire said. “Accepting that messiness allowed Katie to understand that building something new doesn’t always go smoothly at first.”

Today, the Park City Student Service Award is open to students in grades 6-12. To qualify for a certificate, middle school students must complete 30 hours of service per year, while high school students must complete 50 hours. To earn a graduation cord, students must complete 50 hours each year, including their senior year. “You can’t volunteer 200 hours before your senior year and then drop off the map and expect to receive a graduation cord,” McGuire explained. “That doesn’t happen.”

Last year, 14 students applied, totaling 1,561 hours of verified service. The foundation and district confirm hours by contacting organizations directly. McGuire noted that “nine times out of ten, students have volunteered more hours than they actually recorded.”

The overall winner, like Bailey, directs a $1,000 donation to a nonprofit organization of their choice. Bailey chose the iHelp Foundation, the group that organized her Uganda trip. “The Park City Education Foundation issues a check to the nonprofit selected by the student winner, and the student participates in the presentation of the check,” McGuire explained. “We don’t want to pay a student to volunteer.”

McGuire said she and her husband, along with their two daughters, intentionally maintain a low profile. “We prefer not to be highly visible ourselves, but for the students in our community and our efforts to reach them, I’m happy to take on this role,” she said. “Our goal is to uplift them, express our gratitude, and hopefully inspire them to become lifelong volunteers, keeping that spirit alive.”

Looking to the future, the foundation hopes to partner more closely with schools and local nonprofits to integrate service projects into classrooms and make volunteering accessible to students who have jobs or other outside obligations. McGuire expressed a desire to see the school institute a senior class project requiring them to volunteer a certain number of hours.

Bailey, now a first-year psychology major on a pre-med track at Brigham Young University, stated that service will remain central to her life. “I definitely see myself continuing to volunteer,” she said. “Service has been a significant part of my life for so long; I can’t imagine living without investing time, energy, and resources into it.”

She has already become a member of BYU’s Student Alumni Organization and helped organize a weeklong campus-wide service scavenger hunt, which generated hundreds of hours of community service. Bailey hopes to join more groups and return to humanitarian work abroad.

For McGuire, this is precisely the kind of momentum the Park City Student Service Award is intended to inspire. “We hope students will volunteer and carry a spirit of service throughout their entire lives,” McGuire said.