Meital Fried is a first-year student in the Park Pathways program hoping to explore how storytelling can build community and power change. This year, Meital is immersing herself in student media on campus through involvement with organizations such as The Ithacan and ICTV. She also contributes to the Ithaca College Hillel, engaging in their volunteering initiatives and Jewish Learning Fellowship. Throughout high school, Meital was active in her Jewish community, leading services at her synagogue and serving as president of her school’s Jewish Student Union. As a founding member of the Brooklyn Daily Minyan Project, Meital started ‘Teen Tuesday,’ an initiative boosting teenage involvement and leadership in the community. In fall 2024, Meital volunteered as a canvasser and Deputy Poll Captain with the organization, Changing the Conversation for Progress, engaging with unlikely voters by telling and soliciting stories about loved ones. Meital has continued her community service activities in Ithaca by volunteering to lead religious services on Friday evenings at the Longview Retirement Community and by volunteering with other Park Scholars at the Village at Ithaca. Meital has participated in the Jewish Women’s Archive’s Rising Voices Fellowship and Theater Development Fund’s Young Playwrights Group. She also acted in her school’s yearly musicals and was Editor-In-Chief of her school newspaper. At her graduation, Meital received the City Council Speaker’s Achievement Award, and was honored with senior awards in Journalism, Leadership and Initiative in JSU, and Outstanding Performance and Participation in Musical Theater Arts. Her creative writing has won honorable mentions from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the Brooklyn Public Library Teen Writing Contest and been published in the magazine Stone Soup and the collection Everything Momentarily .
Meital Fried
