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A year ago, Miami Palmetto High School junior Ella Pelz started her community service project called Turn the Page. When school was ending, she collected 26 class sets of required reading books used for English classes.
“Those sets have gone to underprivileged schools in Miami-Dade,” she says. “To students who wouldn’t be able to afford purchasing their own books for English class.” Pelz has collected sets of classic books such as Hamlet or Oedipus. Some class sets are bigger than others.
“Some sets have a few hundred and others have been 40,” she says. “It depends on how many people they have in their classroom. They are going to a variety of schools.” She gave a set of 45-60 copies of The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas to Northwestern High School.
She found it hard to get in contact with some of the high schools, so she partnered with Teach for America to find schools who wanted the books.
“They are the ones who have taken six of my sets of books,” she says. “I haven’t heard where the other five have gone yet. The others are still looking to be donated. Depending on what schools reply, we will also look outside Miami-Dade.”
She loves to read and doesn’t have to think twice about ordering a book required for English class. “Other kids aren’t as fortunate,” she says. Their class sets have made a difference. She was sent an email with a picture of three students holding up their copies of The Hate You Give.
Now that Advanced Placement testing is over, she’s emailing the English Department again to begin the collection of the next sets of class books to be donated. Pelz recently became vice president for the Health Information Project.
“I love HIP,” she says. “I’m very much about helping people and giving back.” To her, HIP means educational equity and health equity. She says there are many concepts she wouldn’t have known about before she was taught the HIP curriculum and now, she’s teaching ninth graders about those concepts.
She says some students clearly had no idea how detrimental drugs are. Or how mental health is such a big deal. “I could feel the impact being made,” she says. “I’ve become, not a mentor, but someone they trust and value. It’s been rewarding and meaningful for me.”
It’s also been helpful in determining her career goals. “It reaffirmed that what I’m going to do is helping people in life,” she says. “Being able to educate and help people. Being a doctor. I want to be a neurologist.”
Her extracurricular activities include being the treasurer for the Class of ’24. Next year she will be the Student Council Secretary. She’s the vice president of Social Studies National Honor Society this year and hopes to be an officer again next year. She is on a History Bowl team. She’s also a member of the Science National Honor Society and secretary of the National Honor Society. Yearbook is one of her primary activities. She was copy editor this year but moves up to managing editor next year.
She plays on the varsity tennis team for Palmetto. The team won the State Championship this year. Outside of school she plays tennis for fun.
Her senior year, she will be the Community Outreach Officer for Tutoring for Tomorrow, the student run tutoring organization. She became involved in her sophomore year, tutoring students in math and history. This year she’s been on the board as chief marketing director.
