|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Miami Palmetto High School senior Ava Goldenberg was instrumental in securing a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts for the Pinecrest City Music Project, a student-run organization.
Goldenberg is the new executive director, taking over from founder Daniel Solomon, who has moved on to college. She was hired when she was a freshman with the expectation that she’d take over the reins when he graduated.
The first two years, Goldenberg taught the vocal performance class. She had about 10 students from Pinecrest Elementary, Palmetto Elementary, Howard Drive Elementary and Palmetto Middle.
Now, she heads the first student-run government grant contractor to the Miami-Dade Commission, the Miami-Dade School Board, the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs, the Miami Foundation, the Miami-Dade Children’s Trust and the Village of Pinecrest.
“I oversee all operations, programming, marketing and we put on three county sponsored cultural arts projects,” she says. “We have an annual revenue of $100,000.”
The three events are ArtsFest and two Music in the Gardens concerts at Pinecrest Gardens.
ArtsFest is open to visual and creative arts students across the county. The concerts feature PCMP students, their instructors and the Palmetto High orchestra and band.
Recently Goldenberg also received more good news – she is Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in the Drama category.
Goldenberg is a member of the Thespians and competes in the annual competitions. Over the years she’s won seven high honors, including three top honors and four superiors. The top honors were in duet musicals and one for the large musical category.
She’s been in drama since fifth grade at Pinecrest Elementary. She has also been involved with productions at the Miami Children’s Theater at the Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center. There she had four leading roles in four productions. She also served as an assistant director to a junior show during freshman year.
At Palmetto, she was the Class of 2023 president from freshman year through junior year.
This year she’s the social chair of the Student Council Board.
“I’m in charge of event planning school-wide, fundraisers, social events and we try to bring a sense of community among students at Palmetto,” she says. “It’s a new position. I created it last year.”
She believes her efforts to increase school spirit are working.
“One of the cool aspects of my jobs, myself and the PR head made a Tik Tok for our school,” she says. “One of our Tik Toks went viral and brought good laughs to our school.”
She’s a member of the National Honor Society, secretary of Thespians, a member of the Science National Honor Society and Psi Alpha.
Outside of school she’s a member of the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council.
We do a lot of event planning and fundraisers throughout the community,” she says.
“Advocating for the youth of the community.”
She worked on a project last year to have May declared Mental Health Month in Pinecrest.
“It will be recognized in Pinecrest and our schools and our community,” she says.
Her community service extends even further. She’s the co-founder of the Pinecrest Feeder Pantry. The organization was started during the COVID shutdowns after she realized how much food insecurity existed in the community.
The group has initiated 15 food drives and collected 5,000 pre-packaged canned goods.
They collect from Pinecrest residents to donate to food pantries across Miami.
Goldenberg applied to 18 colleges, including the University of Southern California, UCLA, the University of Michigan, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley.
“I’m interested in studying marketing in the music industry to be around music,” she says.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
To see more #Miaminews from #Aventura to #Coralgables to #SouthMiami, #Pinecrest, #Palmetto Bay and #Cutler Bay and all throughout #Miamidadecounty go to:
www.communitynewspapers.com
