A junior at Palmer Trinity, Waleed Mneimneh has accomplished more in high school than most graduating seniors. The bulk of Mneimneh’s work has been through the Autism Awareness Club, which he founded at Palmer. He started the club because his brother, Tarek, has autism. Tarek was diagnosed at six years old, but the family lived [...]
Westminster Christian senior Sylvia Hernandez is making life more fun for children in Bimini through her foundation Bimini Buds. While vacationing on the island, she noticed the kids needed something to do. “We would go to town and you’d see the kids sitting around doing nothing,” she says. “You’d see little boys trying to play [...]
In just a few days, Jaclyn (Hunter) Cope will be a high school senior looking forward to all the festivities senior year brings. It’s a good place to be for any teen, much less someone who has been dealing with Type 1 diabetes for 10 years and now helps others cope with the condition. “There’s [...]
Palmetto High School junior Danny Trainor recently returned from the Florida state tennis championship where he cheered on his teammates who had qualified for the tournament. Trainor was an alternate this year since he was seeded second in both singles and doubles. “The boys went up there as individuals and the girls went as a [...]
Sabrina Rodriguez, a junior at Palmer Trinity School, started out teaching English technique and literature to fifth- through eighth-grade students in the Breakthrough Miami program at Palmer. Last year she began conducting an art class for the students, who attend the program every other Saturday during the school year. “I love art; no matter what [...]
Palmer Trinity School junior Karina Schiappa Pietra remembers those terrible days her brother Anthony spent in the hospital when he was being treated for Non- Hodgkin’s T Cell lymphoma. “My brother had aggressive chemo and sometimes he had to stay at the hospital for a week,” she says. “He spent weeks in the hospital and [...]
Nikita Kulkarni is the Gulliver Prep Silver Knight nominee in the general scholarship category. Kulkarni is not only strong academically, she is also very involved in extracurricular activities at Gulliver. “I’m part of a major club, Interact,” she says. “We volunteer at an Alzheimer’s home sponsored by Easter Seals. We visit once a month [...]
Every Sunday, Palmetto Senior High School junior Katherine Heldt joins with other members of her church to feed the homeless. “I go to Old Cutler Presbyterian,” Heldt says. “We make bags with meals in them, and then we take a bus or van to downtown Miami and pass them out.” The church group sets up [...]
Palmetto High School junior Hunter Nash is a musician. He started playing guitar at age five, switched to cello in elementary school, then switched back to guitar when he joined his first jazz band in middle school. Now he is in the Palmetto jazz band and plays guitar for the Community Arts Program’s All Star [...]
Paulo Parente is the Gulliver Prep nominee for the Silver Knight Award in Science. “I’ve always taken the hardest science classes,” Parente says. “I take classes about learning about the world rather than literature. I like learning about how the body works and the world functions.” Parente is working on his goal to become doctor [...]
Mollie Dixie Beek is the Gulliver Prep Silver Knight nominee for English and Literature. It’s a good fit for Beek because they just happen to be her favorite subjects. “I love reading and analyzing,” Beek says. “Writing has always been one of my passions. I love writing essays and I love researching.” Beek, a senior [...]
Palmetto High School senior Clayre Benzadon takes time out of her busy schedule to participate in the Friendship Circle at the Chabad of Kendall. “Right now, I’m working with a child who is blind in one eye,” Benzadon says. “She’s six years old, but she doesn’t talk. She has a lot of problems in social [...]
School for Advanced Studies senior David Pena has won a full scholarship to the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) from the QuestBridge program. The QuestBridge program matches low income high school students with one of 40 colleges and pays for their education. The value of the scholarship is $200,000 because it not only covers [...]
Coral Gables High junior Lucila (Lulu) Scavino has earned more than 500 community service hours. Most of the hours come from her participation in the Cavalier Singers and a new all-female ensemble called Divaaz. “It’s after school but we do things on weekends and we do school events,” Scavino said. “We do a variety of [...]
