Positive people in Pinecrest : Mackenzie McCormick

St. Brendan Catholic School senior Mackenzie McCormick is a junior ambassador for A Safe Haven for Newborns, an organization that helps infants that have been surrendered at fire stations or hospitals by a parent in the first month of life.

For the past eight years, McCormick has helped her mother with the Safe Haven gala/silent auction. This summer she began contacting companies for donations.

“My role is getting progressively bigger. Before, it was helping behind the scenes with the annual gala, and in recent years I’ve been able to help in new ways,” she says.

This past spring, McCormick organized a Safe Haven for Newborns Baby Shower Drive at school. She put collection boxes in one of her teacher’s classrooms and brought awareness of the drive through flyers and school announcements.

“We collected hundreds of items,” she says.

Those items included baby shampoo, baby wash, baby powder, clothes, pacifiers, and diapers. They also collected stuffed animals, blankets, and baby toys.

“That was the first time I had done it and I was amazed at the generosity,” she says. “Hopefully we can collect even more items in the next drive.”

McCormick worked with the Future Business Leaders of America club for the collection drive.
“The items were donated to Safe Haven to support mothers in need,” she says.

McCormick also volunteers at St. Louis Catholic Church through the Humanities Ministry. That ministry sponsors the Christmas Family to Family gift drive and a Thanksgiving goods drive.

“You adopt a family and you give them gifts. Everyone deserves a Christmas. It is the best time of the year,” she says. “There is a table outside of church where you can sign up to help. There is a Thanksgiving drive and a back-to-school drive where we ask people to bring packed backpacks.”

For the Christmas drive, McCormick helps unload gifts from cars and helps wrap them with other parishioners. She really enjoys wrapping the Christmas presents because she and her friends work together in the gym while Christmas music plays.

“I love the magic of Christmas, making sure kids have a Christmas is an important thing,” she says.

For the Thanksgiving drive, she has helped pack the boxes with food, and she has even delivered the boxes directly to families.

Another Humanities Ministry program is the Camillus Casserole.

“They have a list of dinners and recipes,” she says. “On the first Wednesday of every month, you cook and donate meals to help feed the homeless.”

She and her mom make a casserole about once a month.

Last year at St. Louis, she coached the middle school volleyball team, and she hopes to do so again.

“It’s fun. I like giving advice and guidance to the younger girls,” she says.

McCormick says the team did well last year.

“This was their first time playing volleyball. They were all having fun and that’s what really matters. I hope some of them continue to play volleyball in high school,” she says.

McCormick is an outside hitter for the Saint Brendan volleyball team.

“We are having a great year but there is some tough competition within Miami,” she says.

At school, McCormick is a member of the FBLA, the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, the National English Honor Society, and the Social Science Honor Society.

In college she is considering an engineering major.

“I want to do something STEM but not in the medical field” she says.

Her college application list includes the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and American University in Washington, D.C.

Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld

 

 

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