Politics may be in the future for Miami Palmetto High School senior Sashi Cayard.
“I hope to be,” she says. “When I get to college, I want to major in political science.”
She has interned with the Mayor of North Miami, County Commissioner Xavier Suarez and Congresswoman Fredricka Wilson.
“At Commissioner Suarez’s office, I was helping with his Envelopes of Safety Project,” she says. “I was contacting every school in Miami-Dade County, getting statistics on how many students are in the after school programs, how many are participating, and the cost to the student to be in the program.”
She worked in the office about a month and a half.
“I learned how my political life works, they things they do,” she says. “I went to committee meetings and seeing how my government works.”
While interning for Congresswoman Wilson, she saw at a Washington level how a congressional office operates.
“Congresswoman Wilson, she had the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, she started 5000 Role Models,” she says. “I see it because we have it at my school.”
She was impressed with the office staff.
“If someone calls and says ‘tell the congresswoman this,’ they will,” she says.
Cayard has taken what she has learned by being in those offices and become effective in helping others.
Last year, she organized Helping Hands for Haiti.
“During the hurricane last year (Hurricane Matthew), my school was collecting items for something else but no one came to pick it up,” she says.
She claimed those items for Helping Hands for Haiti and partnered with a drive organized by the North Miami mayor’s office which ensured the goods could be sent to Haiti.
The drive collected more than 200 pounds of non-perishable goods. This year she’s working on another drive.
“We’ve been collecting for the whole month of November, for a Thanksgiving drive, one fourth will go to my drive which will go to Puerto Rico or Haiti,” she says. “I’m trying to sort out, with Palmetto Youth Council, which I’m a part of, to get things to Puerto Rico, but if I can’t, I may contact the mayor again to get the things over there (to Haiti).”
At school, she’s president of Women of Tomorrow.
“It’s a club that is women oriented, very empowering,” she says. “People come and tell us their experiences.”
She’s the special events chair for Student Council, the committee that plans events such as homecoming, senior prom, Grad Bash, and the senior picnic.
She’s captain of the Pep Squad.
“When we go to pep rallies, we help hype up the crowd,” she says. “We do a lot of background work. Panther for a Day, we help with that.”
Her involvement with No Place for Hate is in the Students Voices area.
“We are telling our stories,” she says. “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Our take on either being bullied or being a bully in the class. You can’t hate someone’s story you know. We are trying to build up tolerance for (others who are different).”
They go to classrooms to talk about the issues with fellow students.
Cayard is also a member of the Italian Honor Society, Key Club, the National Honor Society, the Literary Society and Thespians.
The last couple of years, she has been the master of ceremonies of Panther Prowl, which is the big Homecoming pep rally. She has also been MC for The Panther’s Voice.
As a junior, she won the award for Outstanding Leadership from the PTA.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
