Jose Marti MAST Academy (JMMA) announced its Silver Knight Award nominees for the 2017-2018 school year.
One Silver Knight and three Honorable Mentions in each category will be selected by a panel of independent judges on April 24 at Jungle Island. The Silver Knight winners will be announced at a ceremony on May 17 at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. Silver Knight winners will receive a $2,000 prize and the Honorable Mentions winners will receive $500 each.
Andrea Llamas Sanchez became the school’s first ever Papa John's Pizza Orgullo de Nuestra Juventud (Which means ‘Pride of our Youth’ in English) Winner, and is the General Scholarship Silver Knight Award nominee. Her major project was co-founding a non-profit organization, Silver Knights Take Action. She has over 2,000 hours of community service and through her nonprofit has provided students at JMMA with affordable options for uniforms through used uniform drives. Additionally, her organization has aided students in developing countries like Panama, Colombia, and Cuba. Her organization has been able to donate educational goods like uniforms, notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers and other types of school supplies.
Sanchex has also fundraised money through her nonprofit organization to help St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the American Cancer Society in the hopes that children battling cancer will have the opportunity to complete their education. She has an unweighted grade point average (GPA) of 4.0, and is in the early admissions program at Florida International University because she’s exhausted the math and science curriculum at JMMA.
Chelsea Escarmant is the Science Silver Knight nominee and was nominated because of her contributions through the Key Club. She is the president of the club, and has spent over 375 hours knitting and crocheting scarves, hats and sleeping mats for the elderly and people in need. Miami residents and a nursing home in Colombia have benefitted from her service. Despite having to overcome obstacles like being the primary care-giver to her autistic younger brother, and taking the most rigorous curriculum a student at JMMA could enroll in, she found the time to give back in a way that others would not think of.
Aaron Valdes Lobeiras is the Athletics Silver Knight nominee and is a varsity athlete on the Barbara Goleman badminton team and was on the swimming team last year. Although he attends Jose Marti MAST 6-12 Academy, he is eligible to play sports at his home school. Although he does not have transportation to participate in these sports, he committed himself to the team and would get to practice either through public transportation or making the 2.8 mile walk.
Along this path, he has lost sets of uniforms, was robbed once, fell asleep on the bus and wound up at the end-of-the-line parking lot. He invested close to 400 hours in his Food Rescue Program. He is currently the Food Rescue Student director for Florida and he founded the program at the school where he collected, packaged and delivered the unconsumed food to non-profit organizations. The most outstanding part of the project is the sustainability. He is not physically attending JMMA, because he is in early admissions at Miami-Dade College. However, he left 15 students who are able to run the operation and he’s already appointed his predecessor for when he heads off for college.