Whiz Kid: Hopkins Senior Returns More Than Books to the Library

Do you know a great kid volunteering in your community... or did your local soccer team take the championship? They may be our next Patch "Whiz Kid" honorees.  Let us know.

This week we're celebrating an incredible Hopkins senior who has a passion for community service.  Congratulations, Alexander!

What would the world look like if we took what we were passionate about and gave it back to the community in service? It's a simple but profound philosophy and one followed by 17-year-old Hopkins senior Alexander Kimball.

As a volunteer at the, Kimball enjoys spending his extra time giving back to the library and easing the staff's workload.

“I really enjoyed books and reading, and when I found out that you could actually volunteer and help them out, I decided this might be a fun opportunity to just give back a little,” he explained.

Kimball's passion for books began at a young age. As a child, he attended a small private school, and, depending on the weather, the entire student body would walk to the local library and hang out for about an hour.

“I just started picking up books there,” he remembered. “I got my own library card, and I just started getting really passionate about...this is how I like to spend my time.”

Kimball began volunteering at when he was 12, coming in once a week for at least an hour during the summers. He still volunteers—mostly in the summer from one to three days a week, helping to sort through 20 to 40 large totes of books that sometimes flood the little library.

This past February, Kimball took the initiative to plan and run a library book sale. After three months of planning, he and a buddy set up the tables, organized the books and ran a sale that raised a goodly amount of money despite the time of year.

“We raised roughly about a third of what a normal book sale runs,” said Kimball. “A normal book sale runs all day long, is outside and has seven times as many books—ours was indoors, in the middle of winter and not many people knew about it.”

This show of responsibility and enthusiasm is what made then-Minnetonka Library staffer Katherine Debertin nominate Kimball to receive the Caring Youth Recognition Award, which he received on March 17, 2011.

“Book sales require a lot of organization, time and physical work,” said Debertin.“He and I did some planning together, but ultimately he made the majority of the decisions.”

She also approved of his suggestion of what to do with the funds from the sale.

“My favorite part of the project,” she recalled, “was that he proposed to the Friends of the Minnetonka Library that the proceeds be designated to strengthening the Manga and Anime collections at the library, and that's what we did!”

Outside of volunteering at the library, Kimball also spends his extra time bowling. The past two years Kimball has gone to State with the Hopkins High School varsity team. With an average bowling score of 187 and a personal high of 279, he's one of the top 100 bowlers in the state.

Kimball has also been a Boy Scout since sixth grade, and it fits right in with his ethic of serving.

“Boys Scouts is definitely about giving back to the community and helping out wherever possible – just doing good deeds, good turns,” he said.

Influenced by his love of science fiction, Kimball has already accepted going to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University which offers a major in aerospace engineering.

“I was always interested in technology, especially space and NASA – a lot of the sci-fi that I read is about that stuff,” he explained wearing a t-shirt with the Apollo moon landing on it's front. “I want to work for NASA. Aerospace engineering – that encompasses everything I want to do and NASA provides it.”

Kimball sees volunteering as an opportunity to do something outside the norm.

“Its about expanding and doing something that you normally wouldn't do,” he said. “It's having new experiences, meeting great people and picking up new skills that you might need later in life.”

It may take a complex mind to enter an aerospace engineering program and potentially work for NASA, but it is simple wisdom that Kimball has already achieved.

“It just feels great to help out other people,” Kimball said.