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Miami Palmetto High School junior Aayana Baid won the Princeton University Book Award at the end of year Underclassmen Awards Ceremony. The award is a recognition for civic engagement.
Baid has already earned 700 volunteer hours, not counting hours she’ll receive for completing her Girl Scout Gold Award.
Baid is in the final stages of getting her project revised and approved by the Girl Scout Council. She completed her Silver Award before starting high school. She worked with Touching Miami with Love and organized projects for their elementary school students in Overtown and Homestead.
“I created a curriculum and gathered materials for projects they can do,” she said.
She also donated the materials for the projects, so the teachers could continue after her part was done.
“For my Gold Award I’m hoping to work with Touching Miami with Love again,” she says.
Since her freshman year, Baid has been a member of the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council.
The council’s goal is to reach out to the youth in the community and see what they’ve experienced.
Her sophomore year she was a Vice Chair and this school year she’s been the Chair. Next year she’ll be a council member since seniors don’t have leadership positions.
Among the events she’s done with the council, she had the opportunity to work an event for President Biden.
“I signed and registered all attendees while helping supervise and manage event logistics,” she says.
The council hosts YOUth series, and sometimes they have an event or bring in speakers to tackle important issues.
The YOUth series also tackles financial literacy, non-profits, and a wide range of topics for youth in the community to have the opportunity to educate themselves.
She started high school at the International Studies Preparatory Academy where she was the class president. When she transferred to Palmetto, she joined Student Council. Last year and this school year she was on the community outreach board. Next school year she will be the chief of senate.
“There are two chiefs, me and one other student,” she says. “We are in charge of managing and organizing the committees on the senate. We guide them through their initiatives, direct them towards resources, and just have a very productive school year. This is a way of us making sure, the committees in the senate are productive.”
This year, Baid was a copy editor of The Panther. Next year she’ll be senior copy editor.
She’s a member of the National English Honor Society but will be a vice president next year.
“I like writing and reading,” she says. “For the newspaper I like to write feature stories. I like to highlight people in the school.”
She’s the incoming vice president of induction for the National Honor Society, and a member of Mu Alpha Theta.
Outside of school, Baid is an alto in the Children’s Voice Chorus. She attends practice once a week and they do events at least once a month, sometimes two or three times a month.
“We sang at the Super Bowl,” she says. “And we recently sang the National Anthem for a Dolphins game.”
She’s an instructor for Code Art: Girls Who Code which meets at the Pinecrest Community Center.
“This year I’m teaching middle schoolers,” she says. “I love it. They are super fun to teach.”
In addition to teaching coding, she tutors for Tutoring for Tomorrow. Tutors not only tutor for a fee, but they also do free tutoring once a month at Palmetto High and Palmetto Elementary.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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