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Palmer Trinity School senior Isabella Smith is involved in a myriad of causes to help others.
“A lot of my other service projects is working with people including diversity, equity and inclusion,” she says.
In fact, she had an internship with an organization outside the U.S. called Movement Against Intolerance.
“It specializes in working with victims of hate crimes. And talking about hate speech.”
During the school year, representatives of the organization give speeches to kids in Spain.
They also distribute materials to different organizations such as libraries and student centers.
She was in Spain because she had an EU passport, and she spoke Spanish.
She wants to help people seek asylum. She’s talked to immigrants who had negative experiences with the system.
“I’m an immigrant, and so is my mother. I got to see their experience. In my internship, you meet a lot of people, and you hear the family story.”
At school, she participates in Model United Nations as executive secretary. She goes to the conferences both locally and internationally, including a trip to India in November.
She’s a chair in local conferences and runs committees.
“I encourage people to join things like Model U.N.,” she says.
Model U.N. is a good fit for her since she lived on three continents before she was ten and her family travels a lot.
“If you have the privilege to travel the world, to live outside the US, it changes so much about how you think,” she says.
So far, she’s visited 36 countries. But she has a long way to go to catch up with her dad who has visited 70.
Smith loves kids so she does community service working with children. She worked as a camp counselor at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Nature Center Camp on Key Biscayne for two summers.
At school she’s co-president of the Breakthrough Miami Club.
“We have the summer program and Saturday program,” she says.
This year, the Saturday classes will specialize in STEM. Last year it was arts and humanities.
She was a volunteer in the summer program and is a teacher in the Saturday program.
At Palmer Trinity, she’s also involved in the Mosaic program. She teaches lessons once a month to all the advisories.
The lessons include information on diversity, systemic racism, class division, awareness, how to be kind.
“It’s an important part of our school,” she says. “I made sure to get involved early on.”
She also attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in St. Louis.
“It was the best experience of my life,” she says. “It was a huge safe space. There are only six people from a school a year.”
Smith’s been involved in theater since sixth grade and is the current president of the Thespian Honor Society.
“I’m not a huge singer but I am a big actor,” she says.
She attends district theater competitions and often qualifies for the state competition.
“This year I’m going to do a monologue,” she says. “I have gone to states every year I could.”
Last year she went to states with a large group musical piece and a one act play. The large group musical won superiors at district and states while the one act received a superior at district and an excellent at states.
She also competed in the Florida State Spanish Conference. She took the theater option and won first place in her category for eight schools.
Smith plans to major in International Affairs, Political Science or Pre-Law in college. She’s applying to Amherst, Brown, the University of Chicago, Williams College in Williamstown, and Northwestern.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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