Miami Lakes AutoMall donated $1,000 on June 3 to the Optimist Park baseball program and also held a test drive to raise an additional $500.

Shown from left: Jim Hamilton, treasurer for The Optimist Club; Danny de Varona, president of the baseball program; Lazaro Veliz, general manager of Miami Lakes Chevrolet and Fred Senra, partner at Miami Lakes AutoMall. Photo: Fred Senra.

  The town council surprised Miami Lakes AutoMall Partner Fred Senra on June 6, when they voted to co-designate Northwest 59th Avenue “Fred Senra Way.”        The avenue borders his business.       Friends including  Miami-Dade County Commissioner Senator Rene Garcia praised Senra for his philanthropy and for building a civic-minded family.     It was Senra’s...

 The Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust recognized students from Lawton Chiles Middle School for their work in the Homeless Sensitivity Poster and Essay contest. Alicia Jerez, shown at left, is an eighth-grader who won 2nd-place. Ashley Aleman, right, who is in seventh grade, received a 3rd-place ribbon. With art teacher Lilian Gonzalez, center, they were honored May 25 at the Stephen P. Clark  Government Center in downtown Miami....

 It was seeing a cake decorating class at a Michaels store that inspired Rosie Cunill to leave her job as a medical assistant.      “I came home, and I told my husband I was going to change my career,” Cunill said.      But her beginning efforts, well, as she said, “If I show you the picture of my first cake [you’d] fall over. It was horrible.”      After...

The Helping Hands column profiles the town’s 12 volunteer committees and advisory boards that promote various causes in Miami Lakes and help town government serve the community. Their activities are funded by the town budget and by ticket sales from some events. Committee: Elderly Affairs Committee  Founded: Nov. 14, 2006 Chair: Dottie Wix  Vice Chair: Lourdes Corvo Treasurer: Rosario Navarro Secretary:...