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Miami Palmetto High School rising senior Andie Gussin created Packages for PATCHES to work with the non-profit organization PATCHES PPEC.
“They have children who suffer from complex medical needs,” she says. “The workers at PATCHES will supply them with help – from feeding tubes to diapers. I created different drives to collect, diapers, wipes and baby food.”
The collections drives took place at Palmetto. There she worked with different teachers at the school and the teachers offered extra credit.
“I got 500 items of baby food, diapers and wipes and I delivered them to Homestead,” she says.
Gussin started the project in seventh grade as her bat mitzvah project and then she and her sister brought it to the high school.
“That’s when we started the drives,” she says. “I did a drive in tenth grade and another one in eleventh grade. The workers were very thankful. They run off of donations.”
Working to garner donations for PATCHES is important to Gussin because her brother is medically fragile. She’s grateful her family is financially capable of taking care of his medical needs.
“I felt so fortunate we can take care of him,” she says. “I wanted to give back to the families who couldn’t supply it for them, for their families. This year I held my drive in December. I chose this time of year because it was during the holiday season so I knew that time of the year would be stressful for families.”
Gussin plans to keep on conducting drives for PATCHES even when she goes to college in a year.
Her hard work and dedication on this project and others at school earned her the Panther of Distinction Award.
At school, Gussin’s main extracurricular is the yearbook where she’s the editor-in-chief.
“I love the digital design elements of it,” she says.
She’s been on the yearbook staff since ninth grade. She’s been the Academics Editor, Real Life Editor, and the Sports Editor.
She’s captain of the girls’ varsity lacrosse team. The team has a good year, making it to districts. For next year, the goal is to be the district champion again and go on to the regionals. Gussin also plays for the Miami Sol Lacrosse team.
She is in student government. She was class secretary in ninth, tenth and eleventh grades. When school starts, she’ll be the vice president of senior events.
“I will plan and organize all the senior events,” she says.
She’s also a peer health educator for the Health Information Project.
“I teach ninth graders about relevant health topics that are not taught in school,” she says.
“I think it’s very important that these kids still have the foundation of these topics.”
She enjoys teaching the classes.
“We do interactive games with them, for them to really understand the different topics,” she says. “It’s enjoyable to me to see that they are learning and understanding what we are teaching them.”
Outside of school, she’s on the President’s Council for Friendship Circle.
“I’ve been volunteering for four years now. I get paired with a child who has special needs. I volunteer twice a month on Sundays for two hours.”
On the president’s council she helps plan and organize the different events.
“We make sure that everything is run smoothly and the children enjoy their time there,” she says.
For college, she plans to take pre-health classes and go to medical school to become a dentist.
Her college list includes the University of Florida, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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