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Miami Palmetto High School senior Daniela Martinez is Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in the area of Music and Dance. She’s a member of the Palmetto orchestra.
Martinez has earned almost a thousand hours in community service, many of which came from her service project called Silver Strings.
“I provide music therapy for the elderly,” she says. “I started with orchestra students. I was organizing it all. I organized the rehearsal. First one was at the Palace and I set up the time. And we went and played holiday music.”
She recently opened Silver Strings for any type of musician. And she created a board of directors which includes people who do recruitment. It also helps with social media to get more traction.
She also created a fundraising team to raise money to buy equipment for the performances such as microphones, speakers and music stands.
“Any type of musician can go to a nursing home and play anything,” she says. “I’ve had a singer come. I play the violin and do an accompaniment. I tell them to play older songs so they can sing along.”
She’s been doing Silver Strings since November 2022. She has personally attended six performances, performing herself in all but one. She either plays or sings.
“I always make sure I’m there,” she says.
She’s the contact person with the facility.
“I got kids from Coral Reef to play a piece,” she says. “I passed out holiday cards.”
Martinez is president of Tri-M, the music honor society. One of the projects for Tri-M members was making holiday cards.
Performing at elder care facilities can be hard because a lot of the seniors have dementia or Alzheimer’s.
“It’s harder to interact with them because of that,” she says. “Most of the interaction is when I pass out holiday cards or we sing. The residents will sing along.”
She started the project because her grandfather loved to hear her play the violin when he was passing away. Her grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, and she also loved to hear Martinez play.
“Through that experience, I wanted to give something back,” she says. “I wanted to give back to the community in that way, especially with music.”
She says the seniors are often a forgotten community,
“They are so open for us to come,” she says. “People don’t do much for that community.
We always visited my grandma at least once a week.”
Next year, she plans to take Biology on a pre-med track in college. She’s applied to the University of Florida, Boston College, Boston University, Vanderbilt, Duke, and the University of North Carolina. UNC Biology. She’s been accepted to Florida International, Florida State, and the University of South Florida. She’s considering specializing in either plastic surgery or dermatology.
“When I was in middle school, the TV was on, and the show Dr. Pimple Popper was on,” she says. “That is what I want to do. Plastic surgery came about because this past summer, I shadowed a plastic surgeon.”
She’s a Sunday School teacher at her church, working with 9–12-year-olds. She’s a member of the Pinecrest City Music Project, working as a mentor at Pinecrest Elementary.
She teaches the students how to play the violin. She’s played violin since she was eight.
At Palmetto she’s a member of the National Honor Society, and she is in the Student Council as a member of the Student Involvement Committee.
“What we’ve done, is create Fun Fridays,” she says. “Every Friday we have something in the courtyard. We try to promote school events.”
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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