Ila Urquidi Born at just 3 lbs. 14 ozs., Westminster Christian School rising senior Ila Urquidi has focused much of her volunteer efforts at helping the families of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) babies. “I have spent the majority of my service time as an ICUbaby Youth Ambassador,” she says . The ICUbaby organization works with area hospitals to provide hope to families whose babies are in the NICU. As a freshman, she founded the school club Faith 4 You. The club has two major projects it does each year for ICUbaby. The first is participation in the Hope Parade each November at Zoo Miami. “With my school club, I form a team every year and I am the team captain,” she says. “We have won numerous awards. Last year we won the award for most money raised. We raised $17,000.” Club members also conduct an annual swaddle drive called Swaddled in Love. “We have collected close to 2,000 swaddles in three years,” she says. The swaddles are distributed to the parents of babies in the NICU. This year, she personally went to Mt. Sinai where she was born. “I got to be reunited with three of my nurses from 17 years ago!” she says. Outside of school she participates in several other ICUbaby events including the South Miami Car Parade and the Pack a Pack event. “We form an assembly line and pack care packages for parents who have a baby in the NICU,” she says. “The ICUbaby hospital volunteers will pass them out to every new mother.” Not only was Urquidi born at 32 weeks, she also was born with an ultra rare form of cleft called bilateral macrostomia. “There are only a handful of us in the world I think,” she says. She was in the NICU for six weeks. In her first four years of life, she had several surgeries to repair her cleft. Which is why she is now also a Smile Train Student Ambassador. Smile Train raises money to help families afford those surgeries. In order to become a Smile Train Student Ambassador, she was selected out of numerous applicants. Then she had to raise $800 with a project on her own. “I raised $1,600!” she says. “With my local Pilates studio, Tremble, I collaborated on a benefit class.” This summer, she set up a second class at the Tremble in New York City just before the Smile Train conference in New York. She then presented her project in front of all the other attendees. At school, Urquidi is the captain of the Warriorettes dance team. She joined the varsity team in the eighth grade. “We compete at the state, regional and national level,” she says. “I also compete a solo every year. I was the first Warriorette to place in the top five at states and the first to come out in the top ten at nationals.” Her freshman year, she was the Fine Arts Student of the Year, she won the Best Performer Award her sophomore year and the Dance Choreography Class Award. Ila has served in Student Leadership all four years of high school and was elected to be a member of the first ever Student Ambassador Executive Board. Academically, she’s magna cum laude. She’s a member of the Science National Honor Society, the Dance Honor Society and she’s in her third year of the Entrepreneurship Signature Program. For college, she’s applying to the University of South Carolina, the University of Alabama, the University of Mississippi, the University of Kentucky, Indiana University and the College of Charleston. Ila is leaning toward a major in the Communications field. Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld     ABOUT US: For more Miami community news, look no further than Miami Community Newspapers. This Miami online group of newspapers covers a variety of topics about the local community and beyond. Miami’s Community Newspapers offers daily news, online resources, podcasts and other multimedia content to keep readers informed. With topics ranging from local news to community events, Miami’s Community Newspapers is the ideal source for staying up to date with the latest news and happenings in the area. 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If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected] or [email protected] post Positive people in Pinecrest : Ila Urquidi first appeared on Miami's Community News. ...read more read less