Faran fa*gen| Special to The Palm Beach Post
Raunak Manchanda of Palm Beach Gardenscreated a mentalhealth presentation for students to access.
Gabrielle Williams of Loxahatchee taught young people about financial literacy and general life skills.
Jonathan Beres Boca Raton came up with a plethora of virtual resources for children and families.
Emma Ratchford of West Palm Beach learned to better understand the needs of underserved children.
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These four students participated in a paid seven-week summer internshipworking with Communities in Schools of Palm Beach County. Its mission:tohelphigh-schoolers achieve academic successwhile working toward their individual graduation goals. This included mentorship, creating a strategy to help meet individual needs, inspiring and motivating students, goal setting and ensuring participation.
“This year’s Palm Beach County Student Leaders impressed us with their outstanding achievements, drive and commitment to being a force for good,” said Fabiola Brumley, president of Bank of America Palm Beach County. “We recognize young adults are the future of our community, which is why Bank of America remains committed to helping exceptional individuals use their skills and abilities to make the world a better place.”
Prior to the summer, these standout students were busy leading donation drives, mentoring English-learning students, establishing nonprofit organizations and encouraging girls to pursue science, technology, engineering and math education. Their work got them recognized by Bank of America as this year’s West Palm BeachStudent Leaders.
“A majority of the work I do is project-based, and I have spent the last seven weeks designing activities that will be used by CIS Graduation Coaches with their case-managed students this upcoming school year,” said Ratchford, of A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts.
Ratchford’s activities are designed to help students improvetheir academic performance, attend more consistently, and bemore likely to graduate. For her final project, she created an Interactive Google Classroom where students can access resources, links, and tips to strengthen their studying skills.
Before the summer internship, Ratchford led donation drives and organized events for students to give back to their community as president of her school’s chapter of the Samaritans 365 Club.As a member of her school Spanish Honor Society, she visitedlocal schools to mentor English-learning students. Sheencouragedthese students to “embrace their uniqueness and diversity.”
She is attending Dartmouth in the fall, where she plans to study international relations.
Manchanda, also of Dreyfoos, worked ona mental-health project that included hotlines, organizations, research on mental health disorders and even a "Calm Down Corner" for students.
“I’m loving being a Bank of America Student Leader,” Manchanda said. “I’ve built great relationships with the other student leaders from around the country.”
Manchanda’s highlight of the internship was attending the weeklong summit.
“It was so cool and exciting to speak with Congress people and their staff on both sides of the political spectrum,” Manchanda said. “Not only did attending the summit make me an open-minded person who respects everyone's opinions, but it also taught me that being able to hear both sides of the spectrum is very helpful.”
Manchanda is a national delegate for Girl Scouts USA, serves in a leadership role and is also a two-term Girl Advisory Board member. Additionally, after participating in a summer coding seminar, shewas struck by the lack of girls in the STEM and coding sectors. She took this as motivation to start her own coding club at school where she teaches 30 students (half girls) HTML and CSS.
For Jonathan Beres, of Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, his project was specifically based on community resources. Via fliers, postersand virtual classrooms, students are able to findresources fordaycare/childcare, summer camp, food insecurity, community service, and more.
“Much of this work will be used in the future to help students stay connected to their community,” he said.
Beres said his favorite part of the internship program was “being able to connect with such amazing people. I've met Patrick Franklin, president & CEO Urban League of Palm Beach County, as well as Dr. Laurie George, president & CEO of United Way of Palm Beach County. Both have inspired me with all the work they do for the community.”
Prior to the internship, he established a community organization and soon-to-be nonprofit, Hello Hygienics. Through this organization, he collected over 26,000 hygiene products and organized the distribution of 1,100 hygiene kits to homeless and low-income residents in Palm Beach County.
Williams, of Palm Beach Gardens High School, was a participant in Philanthropy Tank before being awarded an internship with Bank of America. Williams was working to establish a service project to help youths whohaveexperienced legal issues with the juvenile system.
Though the internship may be over, the students are aware that the benefits will be long-lasting; perhaps even for the rest of their lives.
“I’ve learned valuable communication, design, and collaboration skills that I will be able to utilize in all my future endeavors,” Ratchford said. “I plan to major in international relations and public policy in college, and I am confident that my experiences as a Bank of America Student Leader will help me navigate my studies.”
