Palmetto High School senior Hannah Batista has restarted the Panther-to-Panther mentoring program. The program is the community service project she touted in her successful Silver Knight application. She was recently named Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in the Journalism category.
“It previously existed when I was a freshman. It basically failed because it failed to stay organized,” she says. “They shut it down. When I heard it got shut down, I brought it back.”
Panther-to-Panther is a mentoring program where upperclassmen get assigned to mentees.
“Mentees can be any grade level. If they can help them academically, they can tutor them,” she says. “Or help them adjust to high school and learn the ropes.”
The mentors can also help the mentee decide which clubs to join or they can help the student decide on which classes they should take the next year.
The program started with 25 mentors and 25 mentees. Batista recruited 50 potential mentors.
“It’s an all year thing. We have monthly meetings after school where both mentors and mentees show up,” she says.
The mentor and mentees can meet more than once a month. The monthly meetings are to ensure that everyone is on track.
Reviving the program was important to Batista. She didn’t have any friends who went to high school before her who could give her advice, and her sister had already graduated high school and gone on to college so she had to figure things out on her own.
“I was super lost. I didn’t know which clubs to join. I took classes that were too hard for me,” she says. “I didn’t find my place until the beginning of my junior year. I wanted to help those kids that didn’t have that guidance.”
She began the work of restarting the program the summer going into her junior year.
“It took half of junior year to restart it. I had to find a club that was willing to sponsor the program. I had to find a teacher,” she says.
Batista even tracked down the student who originally began Panther-to-Panther for advice.
“She helped me a lot and she gave me a lot of good advice,” Batista says. “She encouraged me to pursue it even more than I already wanted to.”
With the help of a few teachers and CAP Counselor Harry Nerenberg she got the program on track. Since it began again, the feedback has been quite positive.
She’s also the Design Editor for the yearbook.
“I design the main aspects of the book,” she says. “I’ve designed the cover so far and several of the main pages in it. Last year I was a section editor.”
She discovered she loves designing. As she was learning the programs InDesign and Photoshop, she realized that she is interested in continuing using graphic design in a career.
“I’m interested in advertising and minoring in graphic design,” she says. “I hope graphic design is a part of whatever my career ends up being.”
She applied to the University of Florida, the University of North Carolina, Florida State, the University of Central Florida and Florida International University. She’s already been accepted to the University of North Florida and the University of South Florida.
In addition to Panther-to-Panther, Batista is vice president of Interact, the advertising chair of student council and a member of the Spanish National Honor Society.
Through the Spanish National Honor Society, she volunteers every few weeks to help feed the homeless. Club members go every other weekend to help prepare the food at local churches.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
