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Miami Palmetto High School senior Dahlia Harris is president of the PAWS Club for the second year. In her first year as president, club membership jumped from 20 to 120.
In the past, the club donated to a shelter but had never worked closely with shelters or sent volunteers. Now they work closely with PAWS4 You.
“We worked together for the Howl-O-Ween Event at Pinecrest garden,” she says. “We decided our first project with them would be helping to decorate for their fundraiser. There was a whole community of people who wanted to help, painting coconuts and palm fronds.
Another 20 people from the club came to help set them up.”
They also sponsored a Thanksgiving drive and made dog toys for the Humane Society.
They brought in three or four therapy dogs from Heel 2 Heal to help with students’ mental health.
“We plan to bring them more next year,” she says.
Harris is also an athlete. She plays on the Palmetto soccer team.
“I’ve been on the team every year,” she says. “The first year I was on junior varsity and at the end of the year I got moved to varsity and I’ve been on varsity ever since
For the past few summers, Harris has worked at a soccer camp led by her coach.
Her soccer skills as well as her ability to work well with special needs teens led to a job as an assistant soccer coach for Super Soccer Stars.
It was her first job, and she was discovered because of her volunteer work.
“I was volunteering at Friendship Circle with a teenager with special needs. My special friend loved soccer. Every third week, there was a soccer coach who would come in. The coach came in and said he liked the way I was interacting with my friend.”
She used to play club soccer but last year she decided that she was going to focus on school soccer and be more involved in school her senior year.
“In college I want to focus more on media and communication, broadcast arts, that area,” she says. “I haven’t had the time to focus on that the last few years. I did love making videos.”
She was in broadcast classes in middle school. She still uses the skills she learned to help others and hone her skills for a future in broadcasting and media to help spread ideas and information in creative ways.
Harris is on the staff of the Palmetto yearbook.
“It taught me a lot about photoshop and design,” she says.
This year she’s the Events Editor. As the editor she’ll edit the spreads of large events at school.
“It has more of design element than in the past,” she says. “I’m really excited for this year. There are a ton of senior events and pep rallies. We’ll get to showcase a lot of school spirit.”
She’s a member of the National Honor Society, the French National Honor Society and she’s president of the Jewish Student Union. She hopes to expand JSU and bring back members they lost during the COVID years.
Outside of school she continues to volunteer at Friendship Circle. She’s been an active volunteer since seventh grade.
She has volunteered at Paws4You, and at the summer camp at Bet Shira.
Her college list includes the University of Florida, Florida State University and UCLA. She wants to major in media, marketing and communications.
This past spring, she won the Language Arts Junior Student of the Year award.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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