Miami Palmetto High senior Benjamin Amirall has goals for his life.
“I actually want to be an actor when I grow up,” he says. “My main goal is to go to California and see where it takes me.”
When he goes to California, he expects to major in business and go to auditions on the side.
His college list includes Berkley, USC and Pomona – all liberal arts schools.
He’s taking steps to achieve his goals. He’s a member of the Palmetto Thespian Club and takes part in school productions. Last year he played the king in a Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. He expects to audition for shows this year.
“I started in tenth grade and I fell in love with it,” he says. “I love singing, I love acting. I’m not that good at dancing.”
He admires former actors who also break into politics.
“I’d like to Ronald Reagan my way through life,” he says. “I do want to be president. I was quite literal when I say that. I like politics.”
Although he’s a Democrat, he recently restarted the Young Republicans Club at school. He likes talking politics and figured if no one else was going to revive that club, he could do it.
He also likes organizing things.
“I can take a leadership role in our community. I thought of this and thought why not?” he says. “And did it.”
He’s talking about the collection drive he set up to help the homeless.
“I’m working with St. Louis Catholic Church,” he says. “I’m going to be giving them the cans and they are going to giving the cans to their charities like Camillus House.”
He placed collection boxes in various classrooms around the school to make it easy for students to donate. He’s also working with the Young Republican Club to sponsor the food drive.
Plans called for the drive to run through October 20. The cans collected were added to the cans he collected at the end of last year.
That drive was sponsored by the English honor Society but this year the sponsor wanted to work on more reading related activities.
Almirall is vice president of English Honor Society. The club does a variety of things at meetings, including analyzing poetry and songs.
“We give kids space to do their own thing,” he says. “Last year I did a rap song. My fellow board members shared poetry that they had written.”
He says the board is considering putting together a poetry slam.
He volunteers at St. Louis Catholic Church. In ninth grade, he went on a retreat with other youth group members and fell in love with his faith.
“My sophomore year. I was a volunteer at ROCK,” he says.
To this day, he is called to read a Bible passage from the Lectern every month or two. He reads the passage and the priest talks about what Almirall read.
He also volunteers for the St. Louis Christmas drive.
“People bring gifts and we run it over the gift wrappers,” he says.
Families at St. Louis choose a family whose information is hanging on a Christmas tree. The info is on paper shaped like a hand.
They buy the gifts and give them to the church volunteers who wrap them, group the gifts for the family and then take them to those who requested help.
“My mom does a hand every year,” he says.
She asks his advice on what to buy the boys. When he was in tenth grade he helped distribute the gifts in the community.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
