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Article_Lourdes Academy student honored for helping DREAMERS

School News | Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Lourdes Academy student honored for helping DREAMERS

Carolina Gonzalez tapped for Prudential Spirit of Community Silver Medallion

Carolina Gonzalez, a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, has been named a State Honoree for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. She is one of only two volunteers in the state of Florida receiving this national award.

Photographer: COURTESY PHOTO

Carolina Gonzalez, a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, has been named a State Honoree for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. She is one of only two volunteers in the state of Florida receiving this national award.

MIAMI | Carolina Gonzalez, a senior at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, has been named one of Florida’s top two youth volunteers of 2015 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism.   

She will receive the Prudential Spirit of Community Silver Medallion, in a school-wide assembly, on Thursday, March 5, at 9:15 a.m. As a state honoree, Gonzalez will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion and an all-expense-paid, 4-day trip to Washington, D.C., in early May, where 10 honorees will be named America’s top youth volunteers of 2015. 

Gonzalez started a non-profit organization — Deferred Action for Dreamers (DAD) — that has helped more than 500 undocumented young immigrants apply for temporary residence and employment in the U.S., under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. She has raised more than $22,000 to pay the application fees of those who cannot afford them. 

“Since the time I was able to (have) a conversation, my mother would remind me of what they went through; and, at the end of the discussion, she always accentuated how, because of her parents’ decision (who fled Cuba in search of a better life), I was born an American citizen,” Gonzalez said. ”It has been engraved in me to never take my citizenship for granted.” 

Through DAD, Gonzalez began organizing clinics for DACA applicants and recruiting pro-bono lawyers to help them through the complex and time-consuming application process. She also raises funds to give small grants to applicants who cannot afford the $465 application fee.

Gonzalez has volunteered in numerous ways since the age of five, but she always longed to do more for her peers in her community. It was not until her father, an immigration lawyer, mentioned how difficult it was for young immigrants to apply for deferred status that she figured out how.  

“I am not only giving them hope for their future, but also giving them the chance to achieve the American dream,” she said. 

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