Nicole Roman, Miami Dade College

Nicole Roman is a second year student in Miami Dade College’s Dual Language Honors College program. She plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism and is committed to a career that focuses on fighting poverty and working for immigrant rights. In addition to being a Girl Scout troop leader since 2011, Nicole has volunteered more than 1700 hours the last two years with TECHO.org, a youth-led non-profit that seeks to alleviate poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has taken on increasingly complex leadership roles, often volunteers more than 40 hours a week, and has been responsible for helping recruit over 1,000 volunteers and helping TECHO raise more than $150,000 since 2012. She helped TECHO organize the first ever “Colecta” in the U.S. – an event in the streets of Miami to raise awareness and funds to address poverty. She has also been the lead student organizer for Breakpoint, a charity dinner that unites the professional tennis community to fight poverty, and the ArtTECHO exhibit and gala. In part because of Nicole’s unwavering dedication to service, hundreds of families now have TECHO-built houses in the countries where the program works.