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After three years on the Class of ’23 cabinet, Miami Palmetto High School incoming senior Gabriella Weiner has taken on an additional role as a Student Government senator and the ICC liaison. She’ll be in charge of overseeing the school clubs, making sure they are holding meetings and following club guidelines correctly.
She’ll continue her role on the cabinet and participate in the planning and execution of a variety of events.
“We do all the different senior events and activities for other classes, like Panther Prowl,” she says.
The cabinet helps plan activities such as Homecoming Week and the competitions such as the Homecoming Week hallway decoration competition. Events that had been sidelined because of COVID protocols are now back.
“There will be a homecoming dance,” she says. “Which is exciting, cause it’s my senior year.”
Weiner is an athlete. She plays volleyball for the Palmetto varsity team. She’s been a varsity player her junior year and now her senior year.
“We’ve had open gym pretty much all summer,” she says.
Tryouts were earlier this month and practice started right after the tryouts. The first game is the second week of school. A scrimmage is scheduled a couple of days after school starts.
In previous years, Weiner also played club volleyball, but she was injured last year and couldn’t play. She’s undecided as to whether she’ll play club after the varsity season is over.
Weiner is a member of the National Honor Society and Key Club.
At the 2022 end-of-the-year awards, Weiner won the Eleventh Grade Outstanding English Award. She likes to write for herself, usually in her journal. She enjoys creative writing and writing poetry.
Outside of school, Weiner volunteers at the Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center.
“Whenever they have the food distribution and senior activities I volunteer,” she says.
The food distribution usually takes place around the High Holy Days – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper.
She helps package the food and then they set up tables and hand out the food.
Weiner has also worked at the JCC summer camp, working with the younger kids.
Previously she’s participated in and volunteered at the JCC Maccabee Games, an Olympic style competition held at different JCCs across the country. She says the games were held in Miami in 2017 or 2018 and she volunteered during that time. She has also participated in the games, playing volleyball.
Her team did well at the Miami event but did even better, finishing with a bronze medal when they played in Detroit in 2019.
As a senior, Weiner will soon be sending out college applications. Her current application list includes Florida State, the University of Connecticut and Syracuse University.
“I really want to do political science,” she says. “And a pre-track to law.”
At this point, she’s considering careers in political writing or political broadcasting. She finds politics fascinating, especially in this era.
“I want to be a spokesperson for my generation in politics,” she says. “That’s what I’d really like to do. My generation is more open minded and more accepting than other generations.”
She plans to work for the college paper to write about politics and take as many political science and journalism classes as are available.
Her interest was sparked by the Advanced Placement Comparative Government class she took her junior year.
“His class made me get more interested in the way different governments work,” she says.
“I’m going to take US Government this year.”
For the past two years, Weiner has worked for All Star Party World, setting up a variety of parties for the customers.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
