Miami Palmetto High senior Louis Moon collects clothes that he sends to an organization in Equator to help provide children with educational and vocational training.
He learned about the organization Children of the Future through his father, who corresponds with someone in Ecuador who is involved in the organization.
“I send clothes and when they get over there they pretty much sell it to raise money,” he says. “I started doing that my sophomore year.”
So far, he’s sent boxes of clothes three or four times.
At school, Moon is the president of Tutoring for Tomorrow, the student run tutoring organization. There are around 20 students who tutor.
The Palmetto students keep half of the fee they are paid. The half that goes to Tutoring for Tomorrow is donated to school clubs and charities the officers choose.
“They are usually related to education,” Moon says. “Every month we aim to bring in about a thousand dollars. At the end of the year we try to donate $10,000.”
Currently, the club has money left over from previous years which will be donated.
Tutoring for tomorrow has expanded beyond private tutoring.
“We also provide free tutoring for Palmetto Middle and Southwood Middle,” he says. “We do that two days a week.”
At Southwood, the teens helped the middle school students with the Math Counts competition. They helped the students register for the competition and helped them study.
“They did pretty well,” he says. “It was a good experience. It was a like a first-year thing for them.”
Moon competed in Math Counts when he was in middle school. In high school he competes through Mu Alpha Theta, the math honor society. He’s vice president for tutoring for that club.
“This year, we helped consolidate all the tutoring for all the honor societies,” he says. “That’s all after school on Wednesdays now. Before, math would have one day, and social studies on another day.”
Moon is president of the National Honor Society. In that capacity, his goals include having one community service trip per quarter. He’d also like to get involved with the organization Feed My Starving Children.
“We did it two years back. We help pack food and then ship it off to people in need,” he says. “We are going to try and work with the Chapman Partnership – it’s for the homeless.”
Moon is vice president for competitions for the Science Honor Society. He recently competed in the Astronaut Challenge. Last year’s Palmetto team won the regional competition and went on to the competition at the Kennedy Space Center.
He’s taken part in Envirothon, the Lexus Challenge, and the Fairchild Challenge. His team took second place at the Barry University tournament called Chemathon.
Music is a big part of Moon’s life. He plays piano and sax in the Palmetto Jazz Band and clarinet in the Greater Miami Youth Symphony.
In college, Moon plans to major in economics and statistics. He’s applying early decision to Yale and beyond that he’ll apply to Duke and Williams College.
He’s interested in economics since competing in the EuroChallenge, where the team won third place. Last year he contended in the National Economics Challenge, where the team placed first in Florida and ninth nationwide.
“I also competed in the National Personal Finance Challenge,” he says.
That team won the state competition and went on to the national contest.
Last school year, Moon and his teammates placed second place in the Odyssey of the Mind national competition. He’s competed in that event since first grade but the team decided it will not compete again.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
