|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Miami Palmetto High School senior Lukas Goldenberg has earned close to a thousand community service hours since starting high school. One of his biggest projects, the Pinecrest Feeder Pantry, he co-founded with his sister Ava Goldenberg in spring of 2020, when COVID lockdowns began.
“We started by organizing food drives to donate food to other local pantries since they were running low on supplies,” he says. “We also initiated a food rescue program where we worked with a local elementary school and collected unopened healthy food snacks and fruit and delivered three to five coolers of the food to a local homeless shelter and the Coconut Grove Food Crisis Pantry.”
Goldenberg says the food rescue program was a great way to help others and save the planet from food waste. It was done during the height of COVID. They continue to do four to five drives throughout the school year and especially around the holiday season.
He also helps the community through his involvement in the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council for Pinecrest. He’s been on the youth advisory council for four years and is interested in local government and representing the youth voice.
Each year, council members work on projects for their youth series. There are a variety of topics for the youth series.
“This year our group is focusing on CPR and educating the youth in CPR and the heart,” he says.
Earlier this fall, there was a presentation on preparing for college interviews and an Everglades Park Ranger was brought in to talk about the environment.
Helping children improve their reading skills is another community service commitment he has made. He is on the Junior Advisory Board for Achieve Miami. He goes to Caribbean K-8 twice a month on a Saturday to work with a child on both reading and writing.
“We all meet in the cafeteria and the kids have to summarize what they read in the book,” he says. “They have to determine if it’s fiction or non-fiction, tell us three things they like about the book and write a sentence about their favorite character.”
After they read and summarize the book, they get to have a dance break.
The summer of 2022, he went on a Blue Missions trip to the Dominican Republic to build latrines for the residents of a remote village.
He says the village needed recycling for all the waste as well as pipes to bring water to the village.
“We improved living conditions and created sustainable solutions” he says.
The mission trip impacted him greatly.
“It made me appreciate what I have and a desire to do more,” he says.
It also made him want to minor in sustainability in college. He’s considering a major in public policy, political science or environmental science. He’s applying to the University of Florida, Florida State University, Wake Forest, Tulane and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I might want to work in environmental law,” he says.
At Palmetto, he’s a member of the Social Science Honor Society and on one of the History Bowl teams.
Goldenberg has been the secretary for the Class of ’24 for four years. The class cabinet deals with fundraisers and a variety of events from the senior picnic to prom.
This is his fourth year playing for the Palmetto varsity lacrosse team. He was selected as an All Miami Dade second team member last year and has played on various travel teams at the state and regional level.
His goal for the upcoming season is to win the district championship, which would be the first in Palmetto history.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
ABOUT US:
For more Miami community news, look no further than Miami Community Newspapers. This Miami online group of newspapers covers a variety of topics about the local community and beyond. Miami’s Community Newspapers offers daily news, online resources, podcasts and other multimedia content to keep readers informed. With topics ranging from local news to community events, Miami’s Community Newspapers is the ideal source for staying up to date with the latest news and happenings in the area.
This family-owned media company publishes more than a dozen neighborhood publications, magazines, special sections on their websites, newsletters, as well as distributing them in print throughout Miami Dade County from Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Brickell, Coconut Grove, Pinecrest, South Miami, Kendall, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Homestead. Each online publication and print editions provide comprehensive coverage of local news, events, business updates, lifestyle features, and local initiatives within its respective community.
Additionally, the newspaper has exclusive Miami community podcasts, providing listeners with an in-depth look into Miami’s culture. Whether you’re looking for local Miami news, or podcasts, Miami’s Community Newspapers has you covered. For more information, be sure to check out: https://communitynewspapers.com.
If you have any questions, feel free to email Michael@communitynewspapers.com or Grant@communitynewspapers.com.
