Today, Thursday, November 18, 2021, is Give Miami Day, one of the nation’s biggest 24-hour annual giving events; an online campaign where all locals can become philanthropists.
Since 2012, Give Miami Day has raised more than $80 million for their 1,000+ community nonprofits. And this year, their 10th anniversary, they’re aiming to grow that generosity to $100 million.
During the year, you can visit GiveMiamiDay.org to learn about the incredible nonprofits that make Miami a better place. And during the 24–hour event, you can visit the profiles of nearly 900 nonprofit organizations serving Miami-Dade County and make charitable gifts to support the causes you care about.
One such organization is Achieve Miami, which was launched in 2015 with the mission of closing opportunity gaps for students throughout Miami-Dade by providing meaningful educational and enrichment programs that demonstrate the power of students learning with and from each other.
Their Achieve Saturday program brings together elementary and high school students of different ages and backgrounds to learn together. Over the years, Achieve Miami’s work has evolved to include year-round programs for both elementary and high school students throughout Miami-Dade that promote literacy, music, college readiness, service, and leadership at school sites in Little Haiti, Brownsville, Overtown, Liberty City, and Homestead as well as through virtual channels.
During the COVID pandemic, Achieve Miami continued to provide meaningful educational programming for elementary and high school students through virtual workshops and after-school programs. They also hosted several food distribution events at their partner school sites. And that’s when I was first contacted by the organization to produce a video that illustrates the many ways they support the community.
It was a challenge last year but Achieve Miami is back in schools this year so I spent a few days documenting their various programs with my Sony A7III and a few good lenses. Besides getting an inside look at the workings of the organization, this year’s video was especially rewarding for me because it allowed me to combine my video and photography into the production.
