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Lindsay Roth is Gulliver Prep’s Silver Knight nominee in the Social Science category.
“My sophomore year I started a tutoring nonprofit called Happy Inc. Tutoring,” Roth says.
“It provides free tutoring services to students in low-income communities through Zoom. It takes place twice a week.”
The tutors are primarily located in Florida, however there is one who lives in Brazil and another in Pennsylvania.
The children who are being tutored come from different schools around Miami, from Homestead to Overtown.
“My advisor, Dr. Keitha Burnett, Upper School History Faculty, helped me create the organization,” Roth says. “She gave me a list of schools. I started finding tutors within Gulliver and I started emailing the activities directors from schools all around Florida.”
The tutoring sessions take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:45 to 7:45 p.m.
“Once a month we have workshop for the students to learn more about topics they possibly haven’t in school,” she says. “They are mostly STEM topics. We did one on solar energy, computer science and one on space.”
Ten minutes before the sessions begin she pairs the tutors with a student and puts them in breakout rooms.
“Their parents send me their work and I send it to the tutors in the breakout rooms,” she says.
Roth started the service when her advisor talked about how a lot of students in low income communities are falling behind in school because of the pandemic.
“A lot of the students didn’t have the devices they needed,” she says.
She decided she needed to do something when her advisor asked if anyone would be willing to help.
“I’ve always had tutors,” she says.
She’s worked with tutors herself and knew what a difference they can make.
Last year, one student was going to have to drop out because her sister needed to take to college the family’s only device, which was used for the Zoom tutoring sessions. So Roth set up a Go Fund Me page that raised $2100 to buy devices for students.
At Gulliver she’s a member of the Science National Honor Society and the Social Science National Honor Society. She’s also the secretary of HEAL, a biomedical club.
Her main job is to prepare the presentations for the HEAL meetings and take attendance.
HEAL members conduct the blood drives at Gulliver.
She’s co-president of the National English Honor Society, and she works with Achieve Miami.
She is a part of the Social Justice Teen Fellowship at Beth Am.
“I work with about 15 other students who are members at my temple,” she says. “We work with different communities around Florida. We helped to build a community garden in Homestead. We planted different vegetables and fruits.”
She says they’ve done other actives like that.
“We worked with an organization that deals with foster care,” she says. “We helped sort toys and items the children would need for wherever they are staying.”
Roth also worked as a counselor at Camp Jenny, a day away camp for underprivileged children.
“I’m a volunteer for Food Rescue,” she says. “We pick up food from Trader Joes. I bring it to homeless shelters or churches where they give out the food to people in need.”
Next year she’ll attend New York University to major in a Liberal Studies Program. Students don’t declare a major but their junior year they can switch into any of the schools.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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