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Westminster Christian School senior Jamie Suarez is Westminster’s Silver Knight nominee in the Speech category.
To be a Silver Knight nominee, a candidate needs to show strong community service. Last year, Suarez helped the community service director with the Community Service Day for juniors.
She helped facilitate service opportunities, one at the Miami-Dade Animal Shelter, which is the one she is most passionate about.
“We learned about everything they had to offer,” she says. “Neutering, spaying the dog. It’s a non-kill shelter, that’s why it’s crazy, they get a lot (of animals) every day. I thought it was very important for that shelter to be recognized, specifically for people to know more about it.”
Suarez loves her five dogs and she wants to help others know the joy of owning dogs. After going to the shelter, she created a school club called Friends of the Shelter.
“To be a volunteer at this Shelter, you need a clearance letter from the police department,” she says. “As minors, we were unable to access one. We ended up contacting the director and we were able to get this clearance letter waived with a letter of recommendation from my school. Now if you attend Westminster, you don’t have to get this letter.”
Currently, they are working on a drive, the first of many.
“We’re collecting dog food,” she says. “It’s through Amazon and it’s sent to the school.”
The drive also includes specific dog toys.
“This is something that is not expensive, and it promotes kennel enrichment,” she says.
“We are going to bring all the donations to the shelter.”
Her community service works includes volunteering with her brother and sister for the Miami Diaper Bank.
“We would collect diapers and someone from the diaper bank would come by and pick them up,” she says. “We did two drives in a year. An additional one in the summer.”
She also volunteered for three summers at Westminster’s Summer Fun Camp. She did so well, this past summer they hired her and paid her for her work.
“I love it, that’s why I went back,” she says. “I made connections with them.”
At school, she completed the Advanced Placement Capstone program. She researched and wrote papers on her research and even gave a Ted Talk. Her research paper was called Investigating the Impact that Various Colored Jerseys Have on the Pre-Game Mindset and In-Game Performance of Pitchers on the Varsity Baseball Team.
“At our school they have a lot of different jerseys,” she says. “I did a survey of their mindset and ran a significance test with their performance statistics from each game.”
The conclusion was that the color of the jersey did not have an effect on performance, but when they wore black jerseys, they felt less confident, illustrating superstitious behaviors.
Suarez is on the leadership executive board and chairs the Clubs and Community Service committee. She’s a Co-Founder of the Student Ambassador Program and a Peer Counselor.
Suarez is president of National Honor Society, on the board of English National Honor Society, a member of the World Languages Honor Society, Science National Honor Society, National Art Honor Society, Rho Kappa and Mu Alpha Theta.
She plays soccer for Westminster.
Suarez is the recipient of the Posse scholarship which includes a full ride to Davidson College. The Posse Foundation awards scholarships to diverse individuals with extraordinary leadership potential. Posse candidates must demonstrate their leadership abilities and academic potential.
Suarez plans to major in English in a pre-law track.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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