Positive People in Pinecrest : Ingrid Gruener

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
Positive People in Pinecrest :Ingrid Gruener
Ingrid Gruener

Gulliver Prep senior Ingrid Gruener is Gulliver’s Silver Knight nominee in the area of speech. Gruener has two interconnected community service projects listed for her Silver Knight project.

The first project is No More Tears USA.

“I work with human trafficking and domestic violence victims,” she says. “After hearing their stories, I file their intake forms and report their cases to the police. Thereafter, Somy (Ali) and I get them everything they need to start a new life.”

She reached out to Somy Ali, the founder of No More Tears USA through Instagram three years ago seeking to volunteer. She and the founder met and she’s been volunteering daily.

They work with victims in Miami-Dade and Broward.

“We usually get the victims referred to us by law enforcement or federal agencies and we meet with them in a public setting,” she says.

Once they’ve established what help is needed, they find the victims apartments or homes.

If they can’t find a suitable place, they find a shelter.

“If they have kids who have been abused, we find the family a home,” she says.

Gruener’s passion is helping people.

“I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer to give a voice to the people that are not given a voice in the legal system. It always interests me to help in that field,” she says. “I think I know a lot about that. That area calls me.”

Because of COVID, she founded her second community service project. Active Love USA Foundation Inc. When the COVID related restrictions took hold, like most people Gruener stopped going places except for the grocery store. Observing the shoppers and the variety of shopping bags, she came up with the idea of creating reusable bags to raise money for the trafficking victims and raise awareness. Those bags are now available at Wild Fork Foods.

“We secured a deal to sell bags in their stores after presenting our idea in the headquarters,” she says. “We have sold a lot of bags and are looking towards expanding globally. All the funds are going back to No More Tears.”

The funds are helping No More Tears continue their work because the pandemic led to a loss of donations and there’s been an increase in the number of people seeking help.

“It was a really hard time for people economically, and this had a toll on our work with No More Tears because we were not able to help as many victims,” she says.

She created a website, ActiveLoveUSA.org to continue to selling bags online. She also created a Shopify website linked to the No More Tears website to sell clothing she designed with proceeds going to the organization.

At Gulliver, she started a club called Don’t Close Your Eyes about human trafficking. She wants to help students who aren’t aware of the problems of trafficking and domestic violence.

She’s a member of the Spanish Club, the French Club, Smiling Tummies, Uniteen and the Oceanography Club.

She mentors freshman as part of the Student Advisory, is an Achieve Miami volunteer and is a member of Rho Kappa Honor Society and the National Honor Society.

She was part of a Jewish Community Center in Mexico that went to Israel for four weeks where she served as a Youth Corps Member. They stayed on military bases and trained with the military.

Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld


Connect To Your Customers & Grow Your Business

Click Here