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Palmer Trinity School senior Francesca Tebet Ferrer recently conducted a book drive for books to be donated to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. The book drive was created for her Creativity Activity and Service project needed for her International Baccalaureate diploma.
“Each student has to have their own service project that is important to them,” she says. “Things that you connect to personally.”
She’s always been a big reader. She believes children should have access to education and literacy and that the children in the hospital don’t have access to a traditional education to go to school. That’s why it’s important for her to stock the library at the hospital so the children have access to books.
“We take books for children 18 and under,” she says. “It’s an ongoing thing. I want to be able to expand it. The reason they need new books is that if a child checks out the book, they cannot sanitize it for the next child.”
Her other community service hours have come from volunteering as a counselor in training at the summer camp at the Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center the past two summers.
“I mainly work with four- and five-year-olds,” she says. “The first year I believed I worked about four weeks and this one I worked about six weeks. I would stay there about six hours a day five days a week.”
Ferrer says she loves the work.
“They always give me the option who I can work with,” she says. “I always pick the four- and five-year-olds. They are at an age where they are amazed at everything. They are precious. They are looking in the mirror and saying OMG! I have eyebrows. The other one, do I have eyebrows? I love to see how they are able to explore and find themselves. I love to be able to teach them. To help them develop basic moral values like caring and sharing.
You help children see how you are nice to people. How to interact with people. You are teaching them to care about their friends.”
She attended the same summer camp as a youngster.
At school, she in Model United Nations and is an advisor to new members.
“My first travel experience was the Hauge International Model United Nations.”
She traveled to Berlin for the Model UN conference, and she will be attend the Hauge again in January. She has also participated in local Model UN conferences.
She’s also president of The Junto Club, a social justice club named after an organization founded by Benjamin Franklin.
“We try to create a very safe space for political discussion and discourse,” she says. “We are big on the idea of bipartisanship. On representation from both political parties. We don’t encourage screaming debate. We want students to express how they feel politically and how they are politically inclined and explore that with other students their age.”
She says if one side is being difficult, they’ll try to come in and say we need to understand it from a different perspective.
She’s also a student ambassador, conducting tours for prospective students and their families.
Ferrer is a member of the Thespian Honor Society. She takes part in the musical theater productions but from behind the scenes.
“I create poster designs and marketing plans for the shows we put on,” she says. “I’ve made the posters. I help with the quick changes. I make sure we have all the costume pieces ironed or steamed. And make sure everything is washed
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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