Caridad Cruz in 2016 Student Leaders Program

The eight-week program connects high school juniors and seniors based on their academic achievement and community service to employment, skills development and service. 
They are also awarded paid summer internships with local nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity and Boys and Girls Clubs of American and study business leadership, social and civic skills.

The culmination of the program was a national leadership summit in the Nation’s Capitol, where the local students and their peers from other states convened last month.
Cruz loves theater, creative writing, film, and TV production at her school’s Theatre Club. She is president of the club, and she was nominated for the 2016 Miami Herald Sliver Knight Award  in English after teaching a creative writing class.