Palmer Trinity junior Marla Ricart spent last summer volunteering at Breakthrough Miami and the Miami Rescue Mission Clinic in downtown Miami.
“I was at the front desk,” she says. “When the patients came in I would direct them and I made sure they had all their paperwork filed in the clinic. I also helped make pamphlets for different events the clinic was having.”
She wanted to work at the clinic because she’s thinking about going into the medical field. She spent two-and-a-half weeks there.
“I actually learned a lot,” she says. “I like the idea of being a doctor and helping out my community.”
She went from volunteering at the clinic to being a general volunteer at Breakthrough Miami.
“I helped teachers with any of the lessons,” she says. “I helped organize the different activities they would do. They had field day and a work day. I helped organize all that and make posters.”
She also learned about the selection process for the kids who take part of the program and how big the organization is.
At school, she is a Mosaic facilitator. Each facilitator is assigned a classroom. Most of the time, only one facilitator goes to the classroom, but if the topic is particularly difficult, they may send two.
“We have Mosaic once a month at my school,” she says. “We talk about different subjects and what’s going on in the world. I specifically talk to the eighth graders.”
The topics can include identity and sexual awareness and the issues of the day.
“I lead a conversation for 45 minutes and we look at videos,” she says. “It really depends on what’s happening in the world. We’ve watched videos about the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s interesting. Some kids are really passionate about the subject.”
In order to become a facilitator, she had to apply and go through an interview process. The facilitators attend workshops to learn strategies that will help them successfully lead discussions.
Last year, Ricart studied in France, at a sister high school to Palmer. She left Miami in December and came back in May. She stayed with a host family.
“I was part of a special International Baccalaureate program,” she says. “I took courses in English and French. I went to high school like a normal French student would.”
In her time there, she learned how different the school systems are. She learned French students learn British English so she was corrected in English for using American English.
“They would make comments about how I spoke kind of a slang way,” she says. “It was interesting being commented on my accent.”
She surprised her teachers.
“The French teachers had a low standard for how I was going to act and how I was going to do with my classes. They were impressed by how much work I did.”
She also found it interesting that they skipped over the fact that she’s American and seemed more impressed that she’s a Cuban in Miami.
“Most of the time they asked about the Hispanic lifestyles,” she says. “I can’t decide if that’s an advantage or disadvantage.”
Ricart is a two-sport athlete and she also manages the boys football team. She’s able to devote the time to being team manager because she plays winter and spring sports – soccer and lacrosse.
She became a manager after a friend asked Ricart for help in filming a practice.
“We ended up doing almost all their practices and almost all of their games,” she says. “I’ve been doing it for three years.”
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
