Each year, the list of clubs provided at Trinity continues to grow, creating new opportunities for Saints to expand their horizons. This year, Operation Smile, Students Demand Action, Multi-Faith, and Investing/Business club are giving Trinity students new chances in topics Trinity hasn’t seen in years past.
Founded in 1982, Operation Smile is one of the largest medical volunteer-based non-profit organizations that focuses on providing safe, free surgeries that treat cleft lip and palate deformities in third world countries.
Approximately every three minutes, a child is born with a cleft lip or cleft palate, and a majority of children in third world countries are unable to receive the medical care they need because it’s too expensive, specialized, or far away.
“The core mission of Operation Smile is to connect volunteer surgeons and they conduct medical mission trips to third world communities to almost every single country,” club leader of Operation Smile at Trinity, Lilly Nguyen said.
Growing up, Nguyen’s parents were in close contact with Operation Smile and their mission, sparking Nguyen’s interest in medicine and inspiring her to found the club.
“I was really passionate about the mission [they have],” said Nguyen. “I [also] want to study medicine in college and I feel that this is the perfect way to encompass my medical interest with leadership.”
This year, Nguyen plans to create get well cards for kids coming out of surgery and sock puppets to assist speech therapists to help children with speech impediments.
Nguyen also plans to have her club take part in one of Operation Smile’s current missions.
“In the midst of COVID-19, Operation Smile started an initiative called Serving Smiles,”. Nguyen said, “ We team up with local businesses and restaurants to provide appreciation meals for COVID-19 departments [at] local hospitals.”
However, Operation Smile isn’t the only new club on campus that’s connected to a larger organization.
Students Demand Action is a national organization that focuses on ending gun violence.
“Globally, it started around the time gun violence was getting more prevalent in America,” vice president of Students Demand Action at Trinity, Julee Sharma said.
The club promotes activism that will help their cause by encouraging people to attend rallies, protests, or simply registering to vote.
“We are the ones that are going to be left with gun violence and climate change,” Sharma said, “It’s important to start now and promoting it even on Trinity’s campus can bring prevalence to the issue.”
Currently, Sharma and her team are focused on elections. Specifically as a response to the negative effects the pandemic may be having on people’s willingness to vote.
“It’s up to us to promote everyone to get their vote in,” Sharma said.
However, the Students Demand Action club at Trinity’s main vision is to create a safe environment for everyone to let their voice be heard.
“I think the thing that we want to do most is to create a safe environment for talks about [subjects] like George Floyd and Jacob Blake,” Sharma said. “[We want] to create a healthy bubble for people to air their issues out, which I think is really needed at Trinity.”
So while gun violence continues to prove to be a prevalent problem in America, the Students Demand Action club at Trinity plans to encourage more students at Trinity to speak their mind about issues surrounding these topics.
“I think airing out what you feel is right is the best way for students to take part in this club,” Sharma said, “The most that students can do is listen and learn.”
But Students Demand Action isn’t the only new club promoting activism to major issues, the MultiFaith club focuses on bringing different religions on campus together into one environment.
Students in MultiFaith have the opportunity to learn about one another’s religion and have a chance each month to present their own. So far, they plan to discuss Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
“MultiFaith has always been something in the back of my mind, and I think that this year it’s [become] more important because of some popular recent events,” said President of MultiFaith Club, Gabriel Steinberg.
Steinberg said that his experience in elementary school inspired him to bring his idea to Trinity.
“When I was in middle school at the Jewish Academy of Orlando we did multi-faith programs with the Geneva school, which was the Christian school, Leaders Preparatory school, which was a Muslims preparatory school and we met once a month,” Steinberg said. “I wanted to bring a similar concept to Trinity where there are multiple faiths in one school.”
Each month, Steinberg and his team plan to have different events surrounding a certain religion.
“Every month, we’re going to highlight a different religion based on the holidays around it,” Steinberg said, “We’ll do activities, bring food, have speakers once in a while, [and] it’ll be a place where everyone, no matter your religion, can talk about your background and share things you do at home.”
Due to its many holidays surrounding September, their first religion they plan to cover is Judaism.
MultiFaith club is unique in the sense that multiple religions come together, rather than having separate clubs for separate religions that many other schools have.
“I’ve seen that there’s less excitement for all of them to come together,” Steinberg said, “Sometimes there are tensions between religions which is understandable but I [still] want to continue this [club].”
While MultiFaith opens up space for students to learn about other religions, another new club on campus has given students the opportunity to learn about topics that Trinity doesn’t necessarily teach.
“For as long as I could remember I’ve always been interested in the stock market and business in general,” president of Investing and Business club, Nathaniel Cohen-Neamie said.
Cohen-Neamie’s years at Trinity only heightened that passion for business, and eventually, became his inspiration for starting the Business and Investing club.
“For my 8th grade 20-time project, I had a business/investing presentation on how to manage money and I think that followed along with my interest over time,” said Cohen-Neamie.
Cohen-Neamie and his team focus on teaching students how to efficiently manage money and succeed in the stock market.
“The most important thing is that when you have a job or some sort of income you’re not going to know what to do with your money,” Cohen-Neamie said.
Cohen-Neamie plans to invite multiple successful speakers to come and share their experiences. However, the big project that Cohen-Neamie and his team is working on is an investing competition.
“We’re going to divide [the students] up into groups that each represent a local charity,” said Cohen-Neamie, “Whichever one of the three groups earns the most money in the time period is going to donate the proceeds to charity
Although the club is still new, Cohen-Neamie is already thinking about some other big ideas.
“We might host a financial event for the school; not only our school but kinda like a high school for high school and that will encompass the Orlando region,” said Cohen-Neamie.