Community & Philanthropy

Students throughout the tri-county region refused to wait for the National School Walkout in March to make their voices heard in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In the week following the Feb. 14 attack, high school students from Hialeah Senior High, Western High in Davie, Cypress Bay in

At Coconut Creek Elementary School, Christine Bazos doesn’t just teach first-graders about math, reading and social studies. She’s also a caretaker for the children growing up to become leaders. “We try to teach them, even at a very young age, to be the best person they can be—to help others, to not think of themselves

When Leo Moleiro became Coconut Creek’s special events planner in June 2016, he was confident about what his job would entail. But something kept coming up. “When I first started working here, [everyone said], ‘Hey, you’d better get ready for the Butterfly Festival,’ ” Moleiro says. “I was like, ‘Well, it’s June. I’ve got eight

More than 20 years ago, Joan and Bob Nast often would visit local hospitals and pray for sick children. Though they saw many children recover and go on to lead happy lives, they also saw a lot of pain—pain they felt they could help alleviate in some way. “Bobby and I said to each other

Wally has been at the Sawgrass Nature Center and Wildlife Hospital since it began in 1995. Only after naming the alligator did the center realize it made a mistake. “We thought she was a he until she started laying eggs,” says executive director Allan Rose. “She is quite a celebrity.” The nonprofit organization, located in

On an unseasonably cool September night, a 16-year-old girl with a Kewpie doll face, curly brown locks and hazel eyes sat in the kitchen of her mother’s spacious single-family home inside a gated community in western Broward County. After finishing her math homework, Chloe grabbed a snack out of the stainless-steel refrigerator, quietly packed her

When Lyons Creek Middle School last year received its first A grade since 2010, Principal Horace Hamm and his team of teachers and administrators started the school year celebrating. But something gnawed at Hamm: The latest student data showed more than a third of the school’s nearly 2,000 students weren’t performing at grade-level. “We wanted

A Creek resident launches a nonprofit to help the Keys after Irma What began as a Facebook post asking for unused hurricane supplies soon became a nonprofit organization with long-reaching effects. Coconut Creek resident and Winston Park Elementary School teacher Krystal Langley began gathering goods for her hometown of Marathon, the day after Hurricane Irma

This past summer, Adyant Khanna, a junior at Miami Palmetto Senior High School, led a mission in India to provide clean water to more than 1,000 residents in three different villages. “My family is from India, and I’ve visited there for as long as I can remember,” he says. “It’s impossible not to notice the

With just a few words, 17-year-old Anh-Thu Le brings the room to silence. Not an easy feat, considering the room was packed with more than 200 guests from the county. Anh-Thu’s speech was part of the third annual Debate Initiative, a luncheon fundraiser for Broward County Public School’s debate programs. The Debate Initiative serves more

There were a few snags during Michael Sayih’s first race. It was a duathlon: a 5-kilometer run, followed by a 30-kilometer bicycle ride, followed by another 5k run. He was 5 and was strapped to the back of the tandem bicycle steered by his father, Jim. Jim found their position at the start line, braced

When Erika Valbuena first told her students that they would be part of Coconut Creek’s first art show for students with special needs, many of them couldn’t contain their excitement, asking her every day when they could start on their creations. As the autism coach at Tradewinds Elementary School, Valbuena always looks for ways to