Coral Gables High senior Roxy Rico has volunteered at her former elementary school’s after school program. She went to Coral Gables Elementary one to two times a week to help with the younger kids.
“I was with the first graders; I’d help with their homework,” Rico said. “After the homework was over, I’d do arts and crafts with them.”
She attended after school programs while she was in elementary school.
“I wanted to be someone the kids could look up to and be around,” she said.
She currently is developing a school supply collection drive.
“When I was in elementary school, teachers would have to pay for the supplies out of their own pockets,” she said.
She wants to help teachers with supplies such as construction paper, crayons and items used in drawing.
“Things that the teachers use to teach the children,” she said.
Although education is important to her, her goal in life is to become a filmmaker.
“I want to make movies and about people and life experiences,” Rico said. “I’m with the TV production crew at my school. We do the news.
I’m the director.”
As director, she makes sure that everyone is on time and everyone is on task.
“The entire school receives their news and announcements,” she said. “We do sports and segments about the school.”
Rico started out as a scriptwriter and moved up to director. This year, she has TV production for two periods.
“I want to learn more about the editing software,” she said.
Her top choice for college is New York University. She also is interested in Syracuse and other schools in the Northeast.
Rico comes by her interest in filmmaking from her family.
“My grandparents were filmmakers. The made experimental films,” she said. “They made some on Cuba and then they went to NY.”
Darby saw one of their films. It was made about the moon landing in 1969.
“My grandma, made one called Tent City,” she said. “They lived under highway overpasses. They made a tent city. She interviewed them.”
Her grandparents came to the U.S. in a roundabout way.
“They went to Germany. They were on a German cargo ship, then they went to Paris, then they went to New York. Then they went back to
Paris,” she said. “They went to NY and then eventually came to Miami.”
Rico started making her own films as early as age 11 when she made music videos that her friends would judge.
At school she is in the International Baccalaureate Honor Society, on the money committee that finds donations for the International Dinner.
She occasionally volunteers at Gables Cinema.
— Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
