ATHLETICS: Aiden Barreras
Miami Palmetto Senior High senior and Athletics Silver Knight nominee Aiden Barreras’ passion for golf began at the age of five and has continued to flourish ever since. After entering MPSH his freshman year, he decided to join the golf team. Throughout his time spent on the team, Barreras realized no members of the team dealt with special needs. He began his initiative: Driving for Inclusivity. This program is a co-ed golf league, created to teach neurodiverse children how to play golf.
“[We take students with special needs from MPSH] on trips to golf courses with the Special Olympics, and we hold practices and tournaments with them,” Barreras said.
Barreras built this project from the ground up. He started it by himself, and since then, he has partnered with other members of the golf team and the Florida Special Olympics to impact the community to such a great extent. Despite working with others, he holds this project close, often coaching over 15 students all by himself.
In his pursuits, he first reached out to MPSH’s Emotional or Behavioral Disability classes with Dr. Sara Tilton and Coach Anthony Fadelle. He worked with this program at MPSH to invite students interested in learning how to play golf. Barreras also used his ties with the Boy Scouts to start his project.
“This was the beginning of my Eagle Scout project. I had my friends in Boy Scouts help me, but after I got my Eagle Scout, it really branched off into my own thing. So far, I’ve had some of my golf team teammates helping me out, and Fadelle and Tilton. But, for the most part, it’s really just been me alone doing the coaching,” Barreras said.
Partnering with the Florida Special Olympics allowed the program to flourish and access the amenities it currently has. Barreras interned at their offices, allowing him to forge connections with the Chief Executive Officer, Sherry Wheelock, as well as other employees. This company became his biggest outlet for help. They helped him with transporting the kids and receiving donations.
He has also partnered with another foundation, the Rising Stars. The Rising Stars non-profit is an organization that helps parents with neurodivergent kids by providing them with fun activities and care.
Undergoing doubt due to his young age, Barreras wanted to prove everyone wrong: he could make a difference at only 15 years old. Despite challenging those doubts, his age brought difficulties when he first started this project.
“[The biggest difficulty] was trying to get donations and people to believe in my project. It was hard to get golf clubs and they cost a lot of money,” Barreras said. “Another challenge was gaining the trust of parents, faculty members and teachers of kids who have challenges as a teenager.”
After working on this passion project for two years, Barreras is proud of how far his organization has come and the impact he has had on our community and his students.
“The kids know my name. They have someone to look up to and they have a friend. I like to see them smile and I like to see them happy, and I get to during these practices and our time spent together. That’s the biggest thing I’ve taken away from this,” Barreras said.
Throughout the practices and tournaments, these kids have transformed into astounding golf players. Barreras has been honored to see how much they have grown and improved.
“These kids are really good; some better than the kids on Palmetto’s official team,” Barreras said.
More than how skillful they have gotten, the biggest accomplishment throughout this entire experience has been the critical life qualities these students have gained.
“They’re happier and more confident. That’s my main goal, not necessarily about the golf itself. It’s about boosting their self-esteem and having someone to lift them up,” Barreras said.
BUSINESS: Ava Reshefsky
For Miami Palmetto Senior High senior and Business Silver Knight nominee Ava Reshefsky, it all started with a box of beads. Her box of beads and drive for a successful business turned out to be the perfect recipe for her business, Jewels by Ava.
“I sell jewelry, handmade jewelry, and promote products on social media and then donate the proceeds to organizations that I feel passionate about supporting and funding,” Reshefsky said.
The startup for Reshefsky’s business was one that she could ease into, once she found the right products and resources to give her the outcome she was striving for: Jewels by Ava.
“I had beads in my room that were not being used, and I thought that was a good way to sell a product. I then took pictures of the products, promoted them on Instagram, and was able to just reach out to people and they started messaging me back,” Reshefsky said.
After Reshefsky figured out how she would run her business, she reached out to organizations to bring her business to life.
“I realized there were so many people unemployed during COVID. So, I started my project in April of 2020 when there was a huge rise in unemployment rates that led to a rise of food insecurity in our community, to try and help minimize that in some sort of way,” Reshefsky said.
Reshefsky reached out to organizations such as Feeding South Florida, and more recently to the Israel Defense Force, which looks after soldiers in Israel. Motivated by the knowledge of how much the soldiers work, Reshefsky quickly went to work to start selling Israeli bracelets to have people show support on their wrists and to donate the proceeds to the IDF.
“I donated over 300 bracelets for Feeding South Florida and raised $3,000 for them because each bracelet is $10. For the rest of high school, I want to continue to keep expanding, as I have sold over 600 Israel bracelets and that is the main thing I want to do in high school,” Reshefsky said.
Reshefsky has orders going to people all over the country, with 25 states supporting her business. She is extremely proud of her outreach because she gets other people to make a difference in the process, since when they buy a bracelet, they are not only supporting her business, they are additionally giving back.
Reshefsky expresses that the business category of Silver Knight ties into her skills of marketing and promoting Jewels by Ava. She has exposed herself to many business skills, such as managing finances and ensuring. Starting her interest in business as early as middle school, Reshefsky has taken business classes every year at MSPH.
“I plan to continue Jewels for Ava throughout college, selling them and putting bracelets on tables for people around campus and raising money for other organizations I feel passionate about because there are so many more organizations I want to help,” Reshefsky said.
