Serving others began at a young age for William Sebastian Gil, who spent part of his childhood cleaning up the sand on North Miami Beach.
“My father and I would [bike] to the beach, [and] it was really dirty back then,” Gil said.
It was an activity for the family after they arrived in the United States from Lima, Peru. Gil, 18, a senior at Barbara Goleman Senior High School, was in Kindergarten when he began school here. He had to learn to speak English and catch up to his peers.
“They put me in advanced classes after,” Gil said. “I climbed through the ranks.”
And to hear his high school advisor tell it, he’s still climbing, with dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon.
“When I first met William Gil, he was the vice president of his freshmen class,” said Ana Soto-Gonzalez said in an email. “Now in his senior year, his dedication and consistency to school and academics are still evident.”
Soto-Gonzalez says Gil has taken over 20 Advanced Placement classes at Goleman while also engaging in extracurricular activities.
Gil, who lives in unincorporated Northwest Miami-Dade County, is captain of the school’s volleyball team; vice president of the senior class; a member of the National Honor Society and president of the medical club.
“All in all, he’s been an exceptional and respectful student and it’s been a pleasure to watch him grow over the years to the man he’s become,” Soto-Gonzalez said.
His next goal: Winning a Silver Knight award.
Gil said he was inspired to start the Pinnacle Change Foundation after cleaning beaches and seeing wildlife return to urban areas while the world was locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we were in quarantine there were a lot of videos, like in Venice, [Italy] where the dolphins [were] in the water now,” Gil said. “It was just impressive to me. I have never seen animals like that [and] I would like to preserve the environment in that way.”
That drive to protect natural habitats is only one component of the foundation he founded last year.
He also performed community service as part of a fellowship with the United Way and the Green Haven Project, a community garden in the Overtown neighborhood in Miami.
The fellowship brings together student volunteers to learn from others and develop their own service projects, according to Tyler O’dneal of United Way Miami.
Gil led the charge to inform residents about the garden, and also organized a food, clothing and hygiene drive for the community.
O’dneal said it was Gil’s idea to work with the garden and to tell residents it was available for them.
Gil’s Pinnacle Change Foundation grew from those experiences and is a registered non-profit.
Goleman’s Key Club plans to make a donation to it from proceeds of their charity volleyball game, he said.
“I want to keep expanding [the foundation], this money is going to be really crucial for that,” Gil said.
He wants the foundation to be a lifelong endeavor.
Gil’s career goal is to study medicine at an Ivy League university and become a neurosurgeon.
Soto-Gonzalez is Goleman’s coordinator for the Silver Knight Awards, presented each spring to outstanding high school seniors in 15 categories.
Knights must demonstrate good character, success in academics and have created a project that improves the lives of others.
Sponsored by the Miami Herald, past winners and runners-up have received scholarships.
Soto-Gonzalez recommended Gil present his foundation’s activities as a project in his Silver Knight Awards application.
While he hadn’t considered presenting it to Silver Knight judges until his counselor mentioned it, he has jumped at the opportunity.