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Two student organizations touch community in multiple ways.

The College's Miami Benefit Club continues to go to the Community Partnership for the Homeless, Inc. (CPHI) the last Sunday of every month to cook for and serve its 400 residents. Recently, Club members collected more than 200 toys for the children there, helping ensure a festive holiday season.

Some of the toys they collected also will go to Nicaragua as one part of the NICA Global Leadership and Service Project. Titled "Nicaragua December of Dreams Trip to Help Kids," the project is an initiative of the International Business Honor Society (IBHS)(see related story).

On December 19, 2005, Club members went to Telemundo Channel 51 studios, to wrap gifts for needy children.

But that’s not all.

“IBHS has taken on a few new projects this semester,” said Vanessa Fernandez, who serves as the IBHS director of community service as well as president of the Miami Benefit Club. “IBHS members have participated in the CPHI project and in collecting toys for the kids, but in addition to that they have taken on a project at Miami-Jackson Senior High School.”

Miami-Jackson Senior High School is a magnet school located in Brownsville/Liberty City, a low-income, predominantly African-American neighborhood of Greater Miami. Every other Wednesday, IBHS students go to the school for an hour to tutor students in international business programs. Tutors help prepare the high school students for the transition to the college of their choice.

“It’s an awesome project that we intend to continue for the long run,” Fernandez said.