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Senior Taylor Woods is captain of the Palmetto High School cheer squad. She’s been a cheerleader most of her life, starting in elementary school, going through middle school and now four years of high school.
She had done the bulk of her community service through cheering. In fact, 550 of her 675 community service hours come from cheer events over four years.
“We volunteer at many different fundraisers or awareness marathons such as the Smart Ride Awareness Marathon,” she says. “When they are getting ready in the morning, we do a stretch routine with them and we cheer them. When they leave, we do a tunnel for them.”
The cheerleaders show up for community events such as college fairs and the Santa parade at The Falls.
Cheering in 2020 has its challenges. Woods attends Palmetto online and only goes to campus twice a week for practice.
“It’s a very different school year,” she says. “For practice we have to wear masks and social distance.”
There were only three football games and depending on where they played, there were few or no fans in the stands.
“We were not allowed to have crowds in the stands at Tropical Park Stadium. At Traz Powell Stadium they allowed fans.”
When they do go to games, they used to do band dances and cheers. This year, they couldn’t dance with the band because of the attendance restrictions.
“Our last football game, we usually get a senior game, where they celebrate the football players and cheerleaders and band member,” she says. “I’d been looking forward to that game. The cheer coach tried to make it a little bit special for us.”
The cheerleaders usually participate in four or five pep rallies a year, but the pep rallies have also been cancelled, as has the homecoming dance.
“I’m hoping to be able to have some sort of graduation or prom,” Woods says.
This year, the cheer squad was planning to attend their first competition ever. But COVID-19 restrictions placed competitions on hold.
The cheerleaders are supposed to be able to cheer at basketball games, but those plans are likely to be affected by the uptick in COVID cases in Florida.
The cheerleaders participated in Thanksgiving food drives for the homeless as well as toy drives.
“There was a hurricane one year where we collected feminine supplies,” she says.
Those supplies were sent to the Bahamas to help people recover from the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian.
In the past, cheerleading was a club but is now designated as a sport.
“I think it deserved to be a sport through all the years,” she says.
The major change that designation brought was the move toward competitions.
Outside of school, Woods volunteered as a camp counselor/group leader at a Vacation Bible School for two summers. She’d guide the children from activity to activity and took care of their needs.
“If they had arts and crafts, I’d take them and be with them but they’d have their arts and crafts teacher,” she says.
At school she was a member of the No Place for Hate Club.
“We helped spread positivity around the school,” she says. “We would make flyers with positive quotes or activity games during lunch. Then we’d post quotes on the walls.”
They also taught students about bullying awareness.
Woods plans to take Interior Design as her college major. She’s staying in state and has applied to the University of Florida, Florida State, the University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic the University of South Florida and Florida Gulf Coast University.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
