July 31, 2008
By Daniel Shoer Roth
It's not the typical summer vacation for a teen.
Between the fun and the sun, Monica Trueba, 17, spent a week this year training at the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center to help her neighborhood in the event of a hurricane. Along with 30 other kids ages 13 to 17, she handed out batteries at a retirement home, watched a documentary about Hurricane Katrina and brainstormed on how to help during an emergency.
''I learned that there are people around me that need help, and that there are a lot of opportunities to become a volunteer,'' said Trueba, who will graduate next year from Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart.
Trueba is part of a new wave of teens and young adults in South Florida intent on swimming against the currents of indifference.
Studies have shown that if a person becomes active in social work at an early age, they will maintain that commitment through their adult lives. So the outlook is not quite as somber as the one outlined this week by a national study that ranked the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area as dead last in the percentage of adults that dedicate part of their time to volunteer work.
Miami has never been a beacon of social activism. Perhaps it's due to our relatively short history as a community or because immigrants have concentrated first on planting roots, without focusing on a common cause.
That's beginning to change. Among others, there are three innovative programs for kids and young adults:
- Hands on Miami offers one-week summer camps, like the one visited by Trueba, where kids explore issues such as homelessness, the environment, people with disabilities and disaster preparedness. In exchange kids accumulate hours of community service.
- The Human Services Coalition graduates Thursday its first class of Public Allies, a 10-month program that provides young adults the opportunity to intern with relief agencies for low-income families and immigrants. They receive a monthly stipend and $4,700 toward their college.
- City Year, an organization that unites young people for a yearlong community service in 18 cities, will inaugurate its Miami program this fall. Participants will serve as tutors and role models in public schools.
A 2007 study by the Policy Studies Association that interviewed 2,100 graduates from City Year concluded that participants were 45 percent more likely to vote than other youth sharing the same demographic and social characteristics. Similarly, the participants were 65 percent more likely to remain involved in volunteer work.
Eliamelisa González, an FIU graduate, is a good example. The 22-year-old participated in Public Allies volunteering with Family Counseling Services of Greater Miami. Her plan was to travel to Europe for study abroad, but she enjoyed her work so much that the agency hired her.
''Young people are realizing that the change is not going to happen unless someone does something,'' she said.
So what better moment than now to defy statistics without having to wait for the young to grow up to grabbing the reins of change? You don't have to complicate your life. It is through daily random acts of kindness that a community is transformed.