“Look up in the sky! It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s… Sarah Lau?” While saving lives, conducting research, and scoring goals, the senior at St. Luke’s embodies superwoman. When taking a glance into Lau’s life, it is evident that all her pursuits lead to a surrounding principle: serving the community. 

Lau grew up alongside her four siblings in Westport, Connecticut. She attended public elementary school and made the switch to St. Luke’s in 5th grade, where she has continued her academic career through today. 

Lau is an active member of the St. Luke’s and Westport communities. She is a stellar three-sport athlete, Director of Community Service, STEM Scholar, and last but not least, an EMT in Westport. Her rigorous academic and extracurricular schedule is admirable. 

Lau plays soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, all at the varsity level. Her older siblings also excel in sports, with all three of them athletes in college. Lau’s older sister Caroline is especially gifted at basketball. After being a star on the St. Luke’s team, Caroline went on to play Division I basketball at Northwestern University. 

When asked if Lau wanted to follow in her siblings’ footsteps and become a college athlete, she said no. 

“Having all the pressure with my older sister being super good and people expecting the same thing from me was difficult,” Lau said. “That’s what inspired me to do something that I couldn’t just be compared to with her.”

Lau has paved her own road while discovering a fulfilling and inspiring passion for community service. 

She began volunteering at a young age while working with The Love Movement, an organization created by the Lau family that collects blankets and gifts for children whose parents are going through cancer treatment and cannot afford them during the holidays. 

“I started doing community service with The Love Movement with giving gifts to the treatment center in 5th or 6th grade, and from then on, I’ve tried to give back in every way that I can,” Lau said.

Lau has achieved and exceeded this goal. She has completed over 250 service hours, some from traveling to Costa Rica to save turtles and working with The Love Movement, but primarily from volunteering as an EMT in Westport. 

In her sophomore year, an advertisement about EMT classes caught her eye. Lau knew it would be the perfect way to jumpstart her aspirations of potentially becoming a doctor.

Soon enough, Lau was attending EMT classes after school.

“It’s a big commitment: all of the classes are 150 hours, and I did it during the school year. I would go to school and have 3.5 hours of classes after school. Most of the people I went to class with were in their 50s and retired,” Lau said.

After being accepted into her program, Lau was met with the realities of being an EMT. On her first day, she was already saving lives.

“I remember on my second ever call, I walked into a room, and this guy was passed out and completely unconscious, covered in green throw-up,” Lau recalled. “That was definitely a shock to me. I ended up ventilating.”

This experience didn’t scare Lau off, and she persevered.

On days that she has EMT, her schedule consists of school, playing in a varsity sports practice, EMT until at least 11 p.m., and lastly, homework.

Lau adapted quickly and learned how to work with this schedule.

She ended up falling in love with being an EMT, as it affected her deeply. Kelly Neuner ‘24, a close friend of Lau’s, reflected on this. 

Kelly said, “Sarah’s work with community service has helped her grow into a more reflective and gracious person. In Fairfield County, it is easy to be desensitized to how fortunate we are, and as she treats people with various issues, it seems she has a much more heightened sense of issues and burdens that people outside of our community might face.”

Aside from EMT, Lau is also making a difference at St. Luke’s. 

This past spring, Lau was elected as St. Luke’s first-ever Student Director of Community Service for the Upper School. 

Kathryn Parker-Burgard, St. Luke’s Director of the Center for Leadership, shared what this role entails.

She said, “The job is to be a liaison between service work and the school and to really elevate service into the [St. Luke’s] culture.”

Lau is already working hard to uphold this. Over the summer, she had an excellent idea to implement community service into the sports programs at St. Luke’s. 

Parker-Burgard said, “Over the summer, [Sarah] really picked up the ball and reached out to me about having the teams do some community service during preseason. We worked together to make some opportunities at Filling in the Blanks, and there were two days when that happened.”

Lau mentioned how she was proud of this event and how her team was able to come together and contribute to the cause. 

As Lau moves forward with the year, she has even more plans to give back to the community.

Last spring, Lau was accepted into St. Luke’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Scholars Program, which is offered to students who excel in STEM-related subjects. STEM Scholars will research and write on a specific STEM-related topic throughout the year, which will be presented at the Scholars Symposium in March.

Lau and her partner Kelly have already hit the ground running on researching their captivating topic. 

“This year for my STEM project, Kelly and I are trying to make a gauze that is basically impregnated with other ingredients that make blood clots faster,” Lau said.

According to Lau and Kelly, this medical tool would serve people on blood thinners who have trouble making blood clots with minor wounds. Combining her passion for science and math with her love for serving the community, this project suits Lau’s character. 

From balancing EMT, school work, varsity sports, and social life to combating blood clots and serving the community, Lau doesn’t just embody superwomen; she is superwomen. As Lau takes on senior year, we will be watching as she continues to soar through the sky and use her superpowers to make St. Luke’s and the world a better place.