Mia Shields

VOCATIONAL TECHNICAL: Sydney Oren

Miami Palmetto Senior High senior and Vocational Technical Silver Knight nominee Sydney Oren has made her mark with her avid support towards underfunded schools in her local community. 

“My project is called Supply Squad. It’s a community service drive that works to provide supplies for teachers and Teach for America,” Oren said. 

Beginning in 2021, Oren worked alongside her connections at Teach for America, a leadership organization aiming to make long-term impacts toward education equity, to initiate school supply drives at school. 

“We started the initiative as a result of seeing how a teacher’s daughter was affected by being underfunded. I reached out to the organization that she worked for called “Teach for America” and found other underfunded teachers to donate to,” Oren said. 

By the end of her sophomore year, Oren had seen the struggles of underfunded schools firsthand, through her close work with Teach for America teachers, driving her to establish Supply Squad, using Teach for America to find teachers to work with and aid. 

“Being in vocational tech means I’m helping out with a vocation, that being teaching,” Oren said. “I have several drives during the year but I spend most of my time planning and communicating with all different teachers from all different schools.”

Working in close proximity to teachers throughout her high school career, Oren has gained an admiration for their strength and efforts, as well as a passion to one day follow in their footsteps. 

“… Now I’m thinking of going into teaching when I get older. So, through my drive and working with all these different teachers, I get to see the side of them that shows how hard they work and what they’re really doing it for… It’s for the kids, and that’s what has really resonated with me,” Oren said. 

Oren’s activity within her community continues in and out of school; she takes part in Girls Varsity lacrosse, basketball and golf, as well as a member of MPSH’s National Honor Society. She also worked as assistant Chief Executive Officer of Volunteering Miami, a student-run organization providing volunteer opportunities to students in the Miami area. She also participates in j-Serve, a Jewish volunteer network.

WORLD LANGUAGES: Estefania Cerna 

For Miami Palmetto Senior High senior Estefania Cerna, connecting her passion for dance to a community she holds close to her heart helped her earn the Silver Knight nomination in the World Languages category.

Following the realization of how many old, unused dance costumes she had in her closet from years past, Cerna aimed to find an alternative use for these costumes outside of simply donating them to thrift stores where they would wait to be purchased. Thus, her community service project Dancers Dressing Dancers was born. Cerna approached her fellow dancer friends and local studios, collecting old leotards, tights and more to donate to dance studios in low-income communities in San Salvador, El Salvador, where her father’s family is from.

“I teach classes, I choreograph, I spend time with the girls over there because they live in poverty, and the arts have no funding. When I teach over there, the girls show up to dance classes in jeans and school uniforms because they can’t afford leotards and tights,” Cerna said. “I decided to start setting up donation drives in local schools and dance studios. I also partnered with Palmetto’s honor societies and Key Club to do drives for hair accessories… Through the collaboration with the clubs and the honor societies here and also the donation bins around Miami, we were able to collect over 500 donations.”

Cerna’s project has taken a global scope; last summer, she took a team of three to San Salvador to deliver the 500 donation items to dance studios in need, collaborating with the El Salvadorian Department of Ministry and the legislative assembly to identify the particular studios in low-income communities. 

“It meant a lot to me to have a little ceremony there where I gave a speech and we presented some of the donations and all the girls were able to run up and start picking what they wanted. It was really cute,” Cerna said. 

Beyond her community service project and its global impacts, Cerna has served MPSH as a tour guide for prospective students in the English for Speakers of Other Language program, helping them get acclimated to the school’s environment as well as being a friendly face on campus.

“I tour them around, and I also work with Ms. Sanin and her ESOL students to make sure that they’re well acquainted, and, especially on the first couple days of school, they know where they’re going and that their schedules are fine,” Cerna said. “I just make sure to be a friend to them, someone that they know, they can count on. Someone that represents them in clubs and Student Council.”