Mackenzie
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
That's the easiest question you've asked me this whole time. Dance Marathon. I believe it's late March in Gainesville, Florida. It's a philanthropic event put on by students, in which we raise money for Children's Miracle Network. I was heavily involved as an undergraduate student. My last year, we raised $3.2 million. That money goes towards the equipment, volunteers and staff at Shand's hospital in Gainesville, Florida. I will definitely be driving up to Gainesville in March for that.
Jane
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
The Center for Great Apes. They now have 23 orangutans and 31 chimpanzees. Also, there's Ocean Conservancy - You can clean up any day of the week and earn volunteer hours - it's perfect for students. And, Blue Scholars Initiative - - It's is a free educational program with a focus on Marine Science and Marine Biology.
Dina
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
The Harriet Tubman Effect is a community that started in New York, but now It's virtual for people like me that wanna just jump in and listen to their conversations. They are all about reallocating wealth and resources into small businesses and organizations, by means of including diversity, equity and inclusiveness, and curriculum planting. For example, they would get contracted from a school who would ask them to evaluate their curriculum for a theater class. For example. Is it diverse enough? Is it inclusive of all student learners? If not, how can we get there? Then we engage in conversation about what a more diverse and equal curriculum would look like for this school.
Sharon and Jeff
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
We are both tied to JAFCO. It’s the Jewish foster care and adoption facility – the only one of its kind in the United States. I think they do amazing work for families. They have a holistic approach and continue to support children through the age of 21. They help with their college, they help them get cars, they also support families with children with disabilities. We are also involved with Chai Lifeline – which organizes fundraising, programs, activities and events to support families with children battling cancer. And, we support anything to do with MS and American Cancer Society
John
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. They take care in planning their shows and creating something positive and impactful, both for the student body and the greater Miami population. It's not necessarily on everybody's regular path, but it's is a big focus of mine.
Bekki
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
We are very active with the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation. My husband has PKD and he had a kidney transplant almost three years ago. We've been super active in fundraising and creating awareness. Our family hosts a casino night every year in the spring time. It's always a great event and we've raised over a million dollars in the last nine years. My brother was my husband's kidney donor, so it's really an important cause for us and for our family.
Don
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
I'm a big one for Wounded Warrior. I'm a veteran, so I try to stay in touch with what they are doing and help out if I can.
Carrie
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
My daughter's school is amazing. It's the democratic, student-directed Miami Sudbury School. It just opened in August. It’s ages 5-18 in a mixed-age learning community, with no formal instruction—unless the students decide to invite an expert in to teach them something--but with a formal, daily structure for democratic governance of the school that involves every student. It’s the first one in Miami, but Sudbury schools have been around for 50 years, with some of the best long-term outcomes and college acceptance rates of any type of school. Students learn at their own pace and follow their interests, while practicing the crucial life skills of problem solving, conflict resolution, accountability, and critical thinking. They also get hands-on practice with what it means to be a democratic community, in which every member is equally accountable to all the others. Also, I want to share with anyone who doesn’t already know: there’s a great sustainable-living shop that recently opened up near Wynwood: Verde Market, where you can buy bulk items and plastic-free household things that until recently you could mostly only get online.
Kate
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
Susan's husband, Tico, started Watershed Action Lab. They are restoring native oysters to Biscayne bay as a way to mitigate algae blooms. It's an amazing project. This was something he just he dreamed up and made happen and he's a busy guy. He's a full-time dad, co-owner of Radiate, and he's taken the time to do this amazing project.
Gretchen
Are there any community events or groups that are important to you and your family?
Every April it's national poetry month. We partner with the O, Miami Poetry Festival because we love their exuberance, their creativity and their crazy events to expose everybody in Miami Dade to a poem. They commissioned a Miami artist, Jesse Nite, to do something at Robert is Here in the papaya field. It’s called ‘Stay Gold’. It's a huge sculpture, and it's a permanent thing. It's based on a Robert Frost poem. There's going to be activities around it throughout the year. Now when you go south you will see this big 'Stay Gold' in the field. Within the negative space of the letters you'll see the palm trees or the sunset. Another smaller project they're doing is like the little Chiquita banana stickers. They're making fruit stickers and each one has a little poem on it. They're very colorful and very cute. The poems could be a few lines from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas or from elementary students. We've been helping distribute them. I'll try to get you some. You can put them on your fruit. Go on their website omiami.org for the full list of many activities. They have more than one a day.