18179: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-COMMUNITY QUARTERBACK AWARD (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Jan. 31, 2004

COMMUNITY QUARTERBACK AWARD
Teen leads, and wins, by example
The National Football League and Parade magazine applaud the devotion of a
Design and Architecture Senior High student in Miami to helping others.
BY HECTOR FLORIN
hflorin@herald.com

With college applications, scholarship forms and homework piling up,
Seraphin Bernard has plenty of things to keep him busy.

But there was the high school senior after school Thursday, in front of a
dozen elementary school kids, showing them how to incorporate shadows into
their drawings of palm trees and bushes.

''If you don't focus on what you're doing, you don't get an understanding of
what you're drawing,'' he tells the students in the school's courtyard.

Seraphin, 17, started his Young Minds Art Program last year. It aims to
expand the creativity of youngsters whose classroom regimen (and FCAT
preparation) leaves little time for developing a true appreciation of the
arts.

In recognition of his efforts, Parade magazine and the National Football
League have bestowed on Seraphin their Community Quarterback Award. He is
one of 33 winners nationwide being recognized for exemplary community
service.

He'll be profiled in Sunday's Parade magazine, which is inserted in The
Herald and hundreds of other newspapers around the nation.

The magazine profile is nice, but so was the adoration of these precocious
students from Little Haiti's Toussaint L'Ouverture Elementary. He was once
one of them, having attended the school.

''Mr. Bernard! Mr. Tricks!'' they shout and laugh to the peach-fuzzed
teenager.

The nickname comes from the wonders he creates on his sketch pad. And it's
not where his influence ends.

Seraphin volunteers at Miami's Museum of Science and Planetarium, teaching
photography and leading science tours. The NFL, through the Miami Dolphins
Foundation, donated $11,000 to the museum.

Among the 33 winners (one from each NFL team's region, plus an at-large
selection) -- many of them adults -- Seraphin's accomplishments stand tall.

The senior from Design and Architecture Senior High in Miami was selected
from among hundreds of candidates, who were winnowed down to 10 finalists --
two from Miami-Dade, seven from Broward, one from Palm Beach County.

''A great young man, very polite, very interested in helping younger kids to
appreciate art,'' said Ruthie Williams, Toussaint's principal until last
year.

''He's so about helping other people,'' said Jennifer Fields, director of
the Museum of Science's youth development programs.

''He's very outgoing and very verbal,'' said DASH's current principal,
Stacey Mancuso.

The son of Seraphin and Marie, native Haitians who preach the power of
education, Seraphin hopes to study communication design, perhaps at the
prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, which he visited last week.

''I feel they need the same education and same encouragement that I got,''
he says of the kids in his Young Minds Art Program, now in its second year.

He urges them to follow their dreams, as, indeed, he has.

He not only envisioned the program but scrounged up the donations and the
art supplies to make it work, from workers at the museum.

It is two hours after dismissal, and the youngsters are still rapt.

They are fascinated by his charcoal portraits and ink drawings, which
capture an elegance, detail and dimension still photography usually can't.

Among his listeners is Sivensia Sanon, 12, who volunteers at Toussaint from
nearby Edison Middle School.

She flips through Seraphin's portfolio, admiring the craftsmanship -- and
the young man whose craftsmanship it is.

''Be unique,'' he tells her. ``That's the only way to stand out -- to be
different. Make straight A's. Make people proud.''


  email this |  print this | license this | reprint this

_________________________________________________________________
What are the 5 hot job markets for 2004? Click here to find out.
http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Custom/MSN/CareerAdvice/WPI_WhereWillWeFindJobsIn2004.htm?siteid=CBMSN3006&sc_extcmp=JS_wi08_dec03_hotmail1