Westminster Christian Faculty senior Natalia Pineda began a group service undertaking known as Smiles4AllMiami. It’s additionally a membership at Westminster.
“I began it my sophomore 12 months,” she says. “Loads of homeless folks and other people in Miami didn’t have entry to a variety of dental merchandise like toothbrushes and toothpaste. I did analysis and discovered toothbrushes should be changed usually.”
So, she got down to gather dental care merchandise via her membership. The primary assortment netted largely toothbrushes that have been donated domestically.
That 12 months she went on a mission journey to an orphanage within the Dominican Republic.
“They have been sharing toothbrushes,” she says. “We didn’t have donations. We organized their closet in school. We took meals and we had a pizza celebration.”
That impressed her to take motion.
“The subsequent 12 months I began a mission journey to the orphanage,” she says.
College students from Westminster donated 1,000 toothbrushes – however additionally they obtained items from college students at Lourdes, Belen, Columbus and Carrolton.
There have been 27 college students on the journey. They packed up six full suitcases of donations.
“The orphanage gave us an inventory of things they’d a necessity of,” Pineda says. “We stuffed up a complete truck load of stuff. They have been particular suitcases. We had so many diapers. That they had so many infants this 12 months.”
The listing included socks, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, blankets, hair ties, nail clippers, mattress sheets, towels, oil masks, wipes, and physique wash. The youngsters all obtained model new toothbrushes.
“And so they’ll have toothbrushes for years,” she says.
The teenagers have been there for six days. In that point, they painted a mural, stairs and hallways.
They made a hopscotch courtroom for the youngsters and created a cool sample on the steps.
Pineda plans to go once more in April with one other group of teenagers.
“This 12 months we’ve already collected $8,500 {dollars} for the service journey,” she says. “They’ve somewhat picket playground. I needed to interchange the wooden. And paint it.”
She additionally donates dental merchandise domestically each month. Pineda had partnered with a corporation in Little Havana and hopes to work with the Chapman Partnership for the Homeless.
“I went on a college service journey there,” she says. “I noticed they’ve a cellular dental clinic. I helped clear it up. I strain washed it. They stopped it for COVID, however they’re going to begin once more.”
At college, Pineda is a member of the Emerald Students Program and is Westminster’s Silver Evening Nominee for Digital Interactive Media.
She performs varsity soccer for Westminster. Pineda has performed on the crew since freshman 12 months.
She is the Assistant Social Media Scholar Coordinator for Westminster’s Communications and Advertising Division and assists with Westminster’s social media. She helps run the college’s Instagram web page. She additionally runs the college’s athletic Instagram.
Pineda can also be the crew supervisor for the boy’s lacrosse crew.
“I do the social media and I assist with gear,” she says.
Pineda is a member of the English Honor Society, Science Honor Society, the Nationwide Honor Society and Rho Kappa.
To date, Pineda has been accepted to Tulane, Florida State College, the College of Alabama, the College of Tennessee and the College of South Florida. She’s utilized to the College of Michigan, the College of Florida, Villanova, and Boston School. She desires to main in biology on a pre-dental observe.
Within the meantime, in her mission to turn into a dentist she has interned with a few dentists, Dr. Alex Trujillo at Merely Smiles Miami and Dr. Francisco Espinosa.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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