WORLD LANGUAGES: Alexis Moore
Miami Palmetto Senior High senior and Silver Knight World Languages nominee Alexis Moore’s project grew from both a family tradition and a desire to give back to the place she considers home. As a seventh-generation beekeeper raised in Costa Rica, she saw an opportunity to use her skills to support women living in an impoverished rural village. Her project, Bees4Good, helps families create a sustainable source of income through beekeeping.
“I’m a seventh-generation beekeeper, so I know a lot about beekeeping, and I wanted to use it as a force for good in the community,” Moore said. “And also, I grew up in Costa Rica, so it was a way to give back to the country that I grew up in.”
In the village where Moore works, the average monthly income is insufficient to live on. Teaching local women how to care for hives and harvest honey, Moore helped them earn much-needed extra money, which she said makes a real difference for families who often struggle to afford groceries and other necessities.
“It’s amazing to see how much they’ve grown,” Moore said. “Their average salary per month is less than $400, and they’ve already made over $1,000 just from beekeeping. It makes a huge difference in their lives.”
Moore travels to Costa Rica around every three months, but she remains in contact with the women she mentors daily. Since they speak informal, rural Spanish and use no formal beekeeping vocabulary, Moore discovered she needed to adapt her language skills. She went above and beyond by enrolling in a Spanish beekeeping course to learn the terminology that she needed to train them properly.
“[MPSH] picked me for world languages because I’m bilingual,” she said. “But it’s different because they speak slang Spanish, and I didn’t know beekeeping terms in Spanish, so I took a whole course so I could teach them correctly.”
Teaching adult women as a teenager also taught Moore leadership skills, confidence and patience. These skills were put to the test when heavy rains washed out one of the hives, which forced her to step into a mentor role to help the women rebuild.
“As a leader, I had to be like, ‘It’s okay. We’re going to rebuild from this,’” Moore said.
Looking forward, Moore plans to expand Bees4Good by training additional families and exploring new ways to increase these families’ income, possibly through pollen collection. The women she works with are eager to grow, and Moore hopes the project will continue long after her high school years.
“I’m definitely planning on continuing this throughout college and beyond,” Moore said. “They’re so interested in learning, and it’s exciting to keep growing the project.”
VOCATIONAL TECHNICAL: Andie Gussin
While many people’s community service projects stem from love for a group of people, senior and Silver Knight Vocational Technical nominee Andie Gussin’s started because of one person: her brother. Born with a glycogen storage disease (GSD), he required greater medical attention than the average person, and the more medical treatment necessary meant more money spent. When Gussin’s sister introduced her to Patches PPEC, she connected with it instantly and knew exactly what had to be done.
“I felt very grateful that my family could support [my brother] and provide him with whatever needs he required. I found out about Patches, and I decided to pair up with them, because it broke my heart that [others’] parents couldn’t support them for the things that they need just to live,” Gussin said.
Patches PPEC is a nursing care facility that supports families of kids with medical disorders who cannot afford to care for them. With facilities in Homestead and Fort Pierce, it serves as a haven for those in South Florida whose children require medical care. To help support their mission, Gussin held a donation drive to collect items that are much needed in these places.
“I did a drive through the school, and I worked with a few teachers who gave extra credit for it. We were able to get over 500 things of baby food, baby wipes and diapers,” Gussin said. “I brought a whole carload of packages, and that was going to supply them for a while.”
Her project, formally called Packages for Patches, began when she was in seventh grade and has continued to grow each year. What started as a simple kind act of giving back has turned into a major support system for Patches PPEC.
“When I toured the facility, I saw all these children and they were all so cute, and it just made me realize that I’m really making a positive difference in their lives. And talking to the nurses at Patches, they said I was making such a big difference … They run off of donations, and they’re like ‘You’ve truly helped so much,’” Gussin said.
Even as she prepares for college, Gussin plans to stay involved. She said that the project has become a meaningful part of her identity, and she does not want to lose that connection just because she is leaving home. She hopes to continue volunteering at Patches and assisting with future drives.
“My family will definitely keep it going [while I’m at college], and hopefully my brother will take it on in the future,” Gussin said. “I hope other people will work with it, because I know they were very grateful for what I could provide for them. So if other people could also provide for them, that would be great.”
