Samantha Maynes wrote an award-winning news feature highlighting mental health issues that today’s teens face. Photo provided
By Faran Fagen
Samantha Maynes hopes her stories create a safe space for her readers — a space where they feel “they’re not alone.”
Continuing that narrative, Maynes’ award-winning story in last year’s Boca Raton High School Paw Print, “Addressing Stereotypes,” shed light on teen mental health.
“I’d like to think that what resonated with my story was how honest I made it,” said the senior managing editor of the Paw Print newspaper. “Schools should not be afraid to talk more about these topics.”
Her story, which featured mental health issues such as pressure, isolation and anxiety, won first place for feature writing in the South Florida Sun Sentinel annual high school journalism contest.
Aurora Dominguez is teacher adviser for Paw Print and former Boca High teacher of the year. She said Maynes is one of the most dedicated students she’s ever taught.
“She understands and cares about student and teacher mental health and is aware about how a healthy mental state is crucial to live a healthy life,” Dominguez said.
Part 2 of Maynes’ mental health series is in the works. This time, she’s working on a story to help her readers better understand the autism spectrum.
Her cousin is on the spectrum, and although he misses social cues, he’s made huge progress.
She hopes to educate her readers about the similarities they share with people on the spectrum, and how the latter have strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else.
“Everyone has a different neurodiversity. It’s just something someone has and it doesn’t have to define them,” she said.
Maynes, 17, has a 5.1 grade- point average and is ranked in the top 10% of the senior class at Boca High.
She’s entrenched in a plethora of extracurricular and volunteer activities, including the Boca Bash at Boca Middle School (where Maynes is an alumna). As a volunteer, she has coordinated the cakewalk part of the event for three years.
Maynes’ own middle school years were during the coronavirus pandemic, so she missed out on Boca Bashes in seventh and eighth grades. Now, she returns as a mentor.
Her favorite aspect — in keeping with advising her fellow students — is answering questions from the middle schoolers on how they can succeed in high school.
Maynes is also president of Project Women. This school club works to empower and support women, creating a safe space to be open and celebrate achievements. The club holds bi-weekly meetings during lunch, with guest speakers sharing their roads to empowerment. Hands-on self-defense classes promote confidence building, so young women go into college safe and prepared.
However, her favorite volunteer activity is at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. Her mom, Dawn, took Maynes to Gumbo Limbo when she was younger, and Maynes promised to volunteer there one day.
As soon as she turned 16 — the required age to volunteer at the center — she filled out an application.
Her top tasks at Gumbo Limbo are taking care of the hermit crabs and tortoises. She also befriended a puffer fish.
“If they built a second story, I’d live there,” Maynes said.
As she prepares to head to college — so far, she likes the Florida Atlantic University Honors College in Jupiter and Nova Southeastern University — she’s thinking of majoring in one of her three main passions. They are marine and environmental science, writing, and psychology.
“I want to do something that brings happiness to my life,” she said.
The same attitude has infused the mental health articles she’s written that have made a difference at Boca High.
“Most mental health stories are education,” Maynes said. “I usually get lost in the people I interview. It’s another layer of perspective I don’t think I could have gotten otherwise.”
Her empathy extends to her taste in music. Maynes, a self-proclaimed Swiftie, loves Taylor Swift’s latest hit, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.
“Just like her music, I want whatever I do to resonate with someone,” Maynes said.
Bowling for Bread
Boca Helping Hands welcomed 225 adults and children at its annual Bowling for Bread event on Aug. 25 at Bowlero in Boca Raton. BHH invited kids from children’s charities to attend for free and enjoy an afternoon of bowling, food, and prize giveaways.
The event also raised enough funds to provide more than 41,000 meals for the BHH weekend meal program.
Special guests from the Florida Atlantic University football team included offensive linemen Federico Maranges and Andre Lamas and punter Logan Lupo, who came out to cheer on the kids and bowl alongside them.
Trophies were awarded to the top three bowling teams and overall high scores.
Winners were:
• First place: Waypoint Residential
• Second place: Waypoint Residential
• Third place: Law Offices of Pamela Higer-Polani
• The top score was 180, bowled by Dan Brede.
Boca Helping Hands has operated the BHH Backpacks children’s meal program for the past 13 years.
Every Friday, the program provides food-insecure students with non-perishable, easy-to-prepare meals to ensure they get enough to eat on weekends.
During the 2023-24 school year, BHH Backpacks helped over 1,600 students in 13 schools, providing 181,362 meals and 60,454 snacks to elementary students in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach.
Bowling for Bread is part of Boca Chamber Festival Days — a series of events intended to raise awareness and money by pairing nonprofits with members of the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce.
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