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This summer, Miami Palmetto senior Ashley Alfonso took dual enrollment classes at Miami-Dade College and studied for the SAT and the ACT.
“I really just dedicated this summer to academics to help with college applications coming up, so my main focus was just school and swimming this summer,” she says.
Alfonso is captain of the girls’ varsity swim team. The team is three-time district champs and three-time GMAC champs.
Last year, they couldn’t have a regular season because of COVID-19, but swimmers were able to compete in the district, regional and state championships.
She competed in the 500 free and the 100 fly in districts and regionals.
“I think I’m going to end my swimming career after high school,” she says, adding that she hopes to be in a swim club in college.
Outside of sports, Alfonso has her own community service project called Your Books to Our Books.
“I collect books and I donate them to students who need them,” she says. “My first mass donation, I got all my books from family and friends. And I also used social media to see if anyone wanted to donate. Family friends and neighbors.”
So far, she’s done three mass donations of 500-800 books each.
“I give them to all children who are less fortunate and need them,” she says.
She’s donated to the homeless and immigrant children.
“The last three donations I’ve done were to the Chapman Partnership for the Homeless and the Hope Academy,” she says.
She works with school clubs to collect the books.
“They are a variety of a bunch of different books,” she says. “They are reading books for school and entertainment. All children’s books.”
Since the pandemic began, many organizations would not take donations. But she says the Chapman Partnership did allow her to donate before COVID cases began to skyrocket again.
“They did their own COVID guidelines where they sanitized them,” she says.
Alfonso says she was introduced to community service at a young age by her mother. As a family they adopted a homeless family and gave them hygiene products, toys and clothes.
“I remember being young and feeling joy for helping someone else,” she says. “When I was 14, that Christmas, we went to a less fortunate neighborhood and we donated Christmas gifts in that neighborhood. We put a smile on little kids’ faces.”
The following year, for Thanksgiving, they did a food drive at Richmond Heights. All of that was done through Christ Fellowship.
At Palmetto, she is president of the Florida Future Educators of America (FFEA) and a member of HOSA. She competed for HOSA in the sports medicine category. Last school year she placed fourth. She is involved in the LEO Club, which is the club that hosts blood drives.
She is also in the Spanish Honor Society and the Capstone Club. As a junior she was given the PAWS Award for Academic Achievement.
Alfonso is in the Sports Medicine Club at Palmetto. That enabled her to work with the professional athletic trainers as well as student resident trainers from neighboring universities.
“I actually learned a lot,” she says. “I worked a lot of sports games, from volleyball to soccer. Basketball and football as well. It taught me so much about the sports medicine industry.”
As a career she wants to be a sports medicine physician’s assistant, which requires a degree in exercise science or athletic training or Kinesiology.
For college, she’s looking to stay in state and plans to apply to the University of Florida, Florida State, the University of Central Florida and the University of Miami.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
