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Miami Palmetto High School senior Cassandra Pita interns for the Xavier Cortada Foundation, created by eco-artist Xavier Cortada.
“I go to community engagement events and educate people on the foundation’s mission and projects,” she says.
The underwater projects include The Underwater, a participatory art project that was created to help educate residents about climate change creating rising seas.
“People put their elevation numbers in the yard,” she says. “It’s important to acknowledge because we are expected to be about seven feet underwater by the end of the century.”
Pita says the visitors are given their yard elevation when they come to the gallery. They use a system created by Florida International University.
Pita first interacted with the foundation at a different event for the Pinecrest City Music Project and came away from the meeting with an internship.
Cortada is also the artist behind The Reclamation Project. Pita and others go out and collect
mangrove propagules, put them in cups filled with water where they are displayed until it’s time to plant them, restoring coastal habitats.
Pita is also the marketing director for the Pinecrest City Music Project.
“I do a lot of work with the press and trying to get the new releases into the press,” she says. “I run the media market.”
She started as an associate and worked her way up.
“I’ve learned a lot about communications,” she says “I’ll be writing a story and keeping things organized, especially around ArtsFest time.”
As marketing manager, she works closely with the social media manager.
“My job is more focused on ad campaigns with Google ads, and Facebook ads,” she says.
PCMP’s biggest event is an arts festival called ArtsFest.
“Arts Fest allows students to show their work and perform.” she says. “It usually happens in the spring.”
At school, Pita is the secretary of the Science National Honor Society.
“I will be managing the Green Team,” she says. “It’s our more environmental based initiative. We will be participating in an ECO-Fair, and we’ve shown up at different community events. I went to an event my sophomore year at AD Barnes Park. We had a booth for the Green Team. It was an environmentally based event. We would talk about our initiatives. This year we will hopefully start composting at the school.”
She’s also in environmental debate, an event at Fairchild Tropical Garden.
“Last year it happened in February, and we were semi-finalists,” she says. “It was definitely away of learning more about environmental issues.”
This year she’s the Environmental Outreach Board Chair for Student Council.
If all that didn’t keep her busy enough, Pita also plays for the Palmetto Girls Lacrosse team. She and some of the other girls play for the Miami Sol Lacrosse Club team.
Last year the Palmetto team had a record-breaking season. Pita says this year’s team has good chemistry and they’re hoping for another great season.
Her college applications will be going to the University of Florida, Florida State University,
Tufts, Washington University and a couple of University of California schools. She’s deciding
between Environmental Studies or Environmental Health.
“I just started looking into it, how the environment impacts people and our health,” she says.
“And how the changes we are making now will impact us long term.”
She’s also interested in politics and has worked on local campaigns the last few years including Danielle Levine Cava’s campaign for Miami-Dade Mayor and Annette Taddeo’s campaign.
She’s looking forward to voting for the first time.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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