When she was in middle school, Miami Palmetto High School rising senior Shelby Wasserman began a Blessing in a Backpack group to feed children who are on the reduced or free lunch.
“I started it for my bat mitzvah project when I was 13,” she says. “Going into ninth grade, I got my friends from high school to help out and they all got community service hours. Every week we pack the bags. We pack them at Palmetto Elementary.”
On those packing days, they usually have ten volunteers bagging the food for 20-30 children.
“We pack granola bars, ravioli, fruit, snacks and trail mix,” she says.
The food helps sustain the children through the weekend.
Studies have shown children who are on free lunches often don’t have enough to eat on the weekends.
“We have a lot of fundraisers and we get companies to donate to the cause,” she says. “We mostly do bake sales that raise a lot of money. People at school donate.”
Occasionally they include gifts in the bags, such as candy for Halloween or Publix gift cards at Christmas.
“They are really grateful,” she says. “Sometimes we put cereals in the bags and they’ll be’ like I want this cereal’ but they are really grateful.”
While the project continues, Wasserman has stepped back and now has a friend running the program while she concentrates on other community service projects.
Now she and two of her friends volunteer at Baptist, singing to the children in the pediatric ward. They call themselves the Baptist Singers and they sing Disney songs to the children and they take requests. They have recently decided to dress up in Disney costumes.
“We’ll wear tiaras and boas to make it more exciting for the kids,” she says.
After she learned in her psychology class that singing songs to dementia patients helps them, she now wants to expand the singing program to include nursing homes as well.
“If you sing songs from their childhood for people with dementia, it could spark memories. I wanted to do that for them,” she says. “They remember the words. Even for a few minutes, it takes them back to the time when they heard the songs.”
At Palmetto, Wasserman is secretary of Thespians. She played the lead in the Drowsy Chaperon and Rapunzel in Into the Woods.
She goes to Thespian competitions every year both district and states. At districts this year she performed a solo and small group.
“It got superiors. The years past, I got Critic’s Choice,” she says.
She’s a member of the National Honor Society and the English Honor Society, where the students discuss literature and people share works of writing.
Outside of school Eisenberg is a member of the Social Justice Teen Fellowship at Beth Am.
“We do things for the community. We go to homeless shelter and make food for them,” she says. “We went to Shake-a-Leg. One time we cut up old jeans for shoes to send to Africa.”
Members of the fellowship also wrote letters to Senator Marco Rubio calling for gun reform after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
In college she wants to major in psychology and possibly minor in drama.
“I’m really interested in the University of Texas, the University of Florida or Tulane,” she says.
This summer she’s volunteering as a counselor at Beth Am.
“I’m not getting paid but I’m working with the kids,” she says. “They can be very sweet. I have so much fun every day.”
She is also active in BBYO.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
