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Miami Palmetto High School senior Alessandra Falcon is Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in the Vocational/Technical area.
Falcon has a passion for medicine. She’s the president of HOSA and a member of the Health Information Project and LEO Club.
“My path either lies in being a surgeon or medical research for sure,” she says.
She’s already been accepted to Penn State, and the University of Florida. She’s also applied to Harvard, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina, Stanford and Duke. She plans to major in Molecular Biology, Biological Sciences, Microbiology or Biology.
Silver Knight nominees must have strong community service credentials and projects. Falcon’s project was Harmony for Hope.
“It’s centered around a variety of things that I do, little fun things I do like piano, car washes, and a lot of donation drives to raise money for the homeless and underserved community in Miami,” she says. “I branch out to a lot of different donations centers which has given me success.”
She teaches underserved kids through the Pinecrest City Music Project, as well as through the SharpMinds Music Academy, which she attended to learn piano. She donates a percentage of her earnings to her project.
She teaches kids individually at their houses and sometimes she substitute teaches for SharpMinds at the Pinecrest Community Center.
While she never played piano at school, she has played concerts and recitals as well as competitions through the academy. She scored superiors in all the competitions.
Falcon started donation drives to help the underserved. She has done three or so at Palmetto. Each drive generates enough donations to fill 75 to 100 boxes.
“I think I want to do one more,” she says.
She did one for last year’s Valentine’s Day to collect baby items and non-perishable food items. The donations were given to the Chapman Partnership for the Homeless, Camillus House, Lotus House and Pure Heart Christian Center.
She also works with someone from Publix who gives her food that Falcon drops off to one or more of the charities.
“Project Downtown gives to the homeless every Friday evening and sometimes I am able to donate as well and join them,” she says.
She also participated in a toy drive for Christmas with her basketball team.
“We donated to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital,” she says. “I was able to outreach it through my club.”
Falcon plays center/power forward for the basketball team.
“I am an all-around athlete,” she says. “I love playing sports. I love doing it for fun.”
She’s played water polo, was on the swimming team and plays flag football.
Falcon is in the National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society and the Science National Honor Society. Through the Science National Honor Society, she’s participated on the Green Team, Fairchild Challenge, Envirothon and Innovate to Mitigate – which she won, earning $3,000.
The competition requires finding, modifying or creating innovation on climate change. She created an electric composter that is large-scale, quick and benefits people both economically and environmentally.
She’s also participated in a HOSA competition in the sports medicine category. For three years she took First Place at regionals and one year she earned Second Place at states.
In Summer, 2023, she was a volunteer and observer at the West Kendall Baptist Hospital. She shadowed an orthopedic surgeon for several weeks.
This past summer she was a volunteer assistant at the Pinecrest Physical Therapy Center.
Every year she volunteers for a Huntington Disease Triathlon. She sets up, gives out water, and cleans up trails.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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