Episode 618 | 6.2.21
After his mom was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Juan Tejera of Jesuit Preparatory School used social media to promote the story of his mom and organized a bone marrow registration drive at his school’s annual spring carnival.
Vocational Technical Silver Knight winner Leandra Hall of Mast Academy partnered with CodeFeverMiami and BotsForAll to launch afrotechie.org, to provide free online resources for creating and running efficient STEM programs.
Plus Manny Johnson with hemp safety and the importance of selecting reputable products.
About Our Guests
Juan Tejera
After his mom was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Juan Tejera of Jesuit Preparatory School, Silver Knight for Journalism learned about Be the Match, a nonprofit that conducts research to improve transplant outcomes and provides support for patients. Through its bone marrow registry, his mother found a match and received life-saving treatment. Our Silver Knight joined the organization as an advocate and ambassador and recruited others to sign up as potential donors. He used social media to promote the story of his mom and organized a bone marrow registration drive at his school’s annual spring carnival. The result: 100 people signed up to be potential donors. He also has served as vice president of his school’s Mu Alpha Theta chapter, the national honor society for mathematics.
Leandra Hall
When she was 13, Vocational Technical Silver Knight winner Leandra Hall of Mast Academy partnered with CodeFeverMiami and BotsForAll to launch AfroTechie, which started as a service project with the Girl Scouts and later evolved to the Gold Award, the highest accolade for a Girl Scout. She saw that minority children often lacked access to S.T.E.M education and resources. She has invested more than 300 hours developing curriculum and teaching coding and robotics at summer camps and after-school programs, working with middle-school students to ignite their interest in STEM. She also developed the website, afrotechie.org, to provide free online resources for creating and running efficient STEM programs.
