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Palmetto High School rising senior Ana Martinez has created My Miami Advocacy Project, an organization to increase advocacy in politics by teens.
“I started an Instagram,” she says. “It has reached almost 200 followers. We’ve posted events on how to become more involved.”
The organization recently had a seminar with former Congresswoman Donna Shalala covering youth advocacy and the life of a politician. It’s just one of many events that the group sponsors and plans to organize. Martinez says everyone is welcome to attend.
Martinez says even though people think she’s just a kid and she’s not going to make a difference she begs to differ.
“Voices matter,” she says. “One big thing we’re planning as the pandemic comes to a close is to have an in-person event in Pinecrest Garden.”
By having the in-person event, she plans to invite all youth to learn about politics, what it takes to be a politician and show what a day in the life of a Pinecrest Village Council Member or Mayor is like.
“For right now, I’m planning to reach out to the local community,” she says. “I’m working with my friend from the Youth Advisory Council. That’s where I became interested in politics.”
Martinez is the past chair of the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council.
“I’ve been on the council since my freshman year,” she says. “This year I was able, as chair, to verify our Instagram account. We have almost 400 followers.”
She says the council is planning to establish a Mental Health Wellness Day in Pinecrest. That project led to winning an award from the Florida League of Cities.
Martinez is also involved in the Pinecrest City Music Project. She’s played piano for about 10 years and she uses her music knowledge to teach music theory.
“I teach one student once or twice a week,” she says. “We usually go through classical music and contemporary music and we learn how to play it.”
At Palmetto, Martinez is a Vice President of Foreign Affairs of Interact. She manages the talent show, Panthers Got Talent. In 2019, she coordinated ticket sales, food and advertising for the show. Last school year they couldn’t have the show due to COVID-19, so they concentrated on community service.
“We did a few of our own projects writing letters and cards to senior homes,” she says.
“Each of our members wrote two cards.”
Martinez is the Online Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper. She deals with everything from stories to the appearance of the website. This past school year she was Feature Editor, supervising the feature section for both print and online stories. During her sophomore year she was a design editor.
She’s the incoming president for the English Honor Society.
“In the past, we have done a holiday book exchange, but it’s more writing and thinking creatively,” she says.
While they will still get together to write creative poems and short stories, she’d like to expand the club’s community service.
Martinez is a member of the Spanish Honor Society and the Social Studies Honor Society.
She participates in History Bowl.
Martinez is the incoming captain of the Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse team. The team was able to play this past year following COVID-19 guidelines.
“It kind of gave me a sense of normalcy,” she says.
The team made it to the district semi-finals.
Martinez is interested in applying to Northwestern, Duke, Georgetown, the University of Florida and Florida State. She wants to double major in international relations, history or journalism with a minor in Spanish.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
