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Westminster Christian School senior Addison Dominguez is the co-founder of a community service club called Dare to be Different. She started the club with her friend Luna Liu.
“We work with kids at Learning Links Elementary,” she says. “That’s a special school for kids with mental disabilities.”
The school works with children who need their own special environment to learn.
“We’ve gone there for Christmas and sang carols to them,” she says. “We’ve done arts and crafts. It makes a connection with kids they may have never met before.”
Dominguez says they try to go twice a semester, often around the holidays. They do plan to go back for Christmas this year. And for Halloween.
“So, we can do costumes,” she says. “More like a parade. Students from Westminster will dress up and if they allow it, students from the school as well.”
She’s been a camp counselor, and she always gravitates to the children who have disabilities, and she says they gravitate toward her.
As a camp counselor she’s worked with elementary school students as young as first grade all the way to fifth grade.
She volunteers at the Westminster Lacrosse Summer Camp to help young girls develop a love for the sport.
Dominguez has been captain of the Westminster lacrosse team since her sophomore year. Last year the team had an impressive season, going to the district championship game. Previously they had never gotten past the quarterfinals. She expects a lot in the upcoming season because so many girls are returning.
During the school year, Dominguez takes as many dual enrollment classes as possible, including Italian and forensic science at Florida International University.
She also has taken all the sciences she can take in high school, including Advanced Placement Biology and AP Chemistry. She’s also taken nutrition, which she enjoys because it touches on biology and chemistry, while being applicable to everyday life. She is finishing off her high-school science career in Physics.
In college, she wants to do an interdisciplinary program that brings in a mix of science, biology, and business.
“I’m going to major in science and get MBA,” she says. “I’m considering working in the science of aging and business.”
Her college list includes Georgetown, the University of Florida, The University College of London, Northeastern University, and Penn State.
Her interest in aging is sparked by her grandparents.
“On my dad’s side, my Abuelito was a smoker and drinker,” Dominguez says. “On my mom’s side, my grandma goes to the gym. She lives in rural Pennsylvania. She has a farm, she does renovation. She was a poster girl for the Gym magazine.”
On the other hand, her Abuelita has health problems that are getting worse. Dominguez wants to figure out how to help aging people like her grandparents.
She’s the president of the Science National Honor Society and a member of the Honors Science Research Class.
“All classes require you to do a science project, but you only go to the science fair through the science research class,” she says.
Her 2024-2025 science fair project is studying whether the common flavonoid kaempferol can affect tumor suppression in generations of flies with cancer.
She previously researched how choline affects the regeneration of flies with Alzheimer’s, and studied how water polluted with cigarette butts affects its inhabitants.
At school, she’s on the board for the Model United Nations club.
“With model UN I’ve gone to maybe six or seven conferences over the course of the past two years,” she says. “This year we will be attending another three or four.”
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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