Mia Bonutti, a senior at Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, stands inside the 30-foot camper she renovated for her independent study project, which allowed her to tackle a real-life topic of interest. She hopes to donate the RV to an organization that will use it to house homeless people. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Janis Fontaine
Mia Bonutti likes solving problems. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, she hunkered down with her family in Manalapan, watching news reports. At the same time, Mia, a student at Oxbridge Academy in West Palm Beach, was considering ideas for an independent study project.
The tiny-home craze caught her attention, and she likes woodworking and getting her hands dirty. Homelessness is a huge problem. She thought: Could I build a tiny home and give it away to a homeless person?
She talked it over with her dad, Peter Bonutti, an orthopedic-reconstructive surgeon and inventor.
“My dad and I know nothing about plumbing,” Mia said, so her dad suggested they find an older RV with good bones and refurbish it. Before long, a 30-foot, 10-year-old trailer with a small pop-out and intact plumbing was parked at Oxbridge Academy, ready to be worked on. She and her family paid $7,000 for the camper and eventually invested $4,000-$5,000 in improvements.
Mia gutted the vehicle, then renovated it mechanically and remodeled the interior. Teachers and advisers helped her with things she wasn’t familiar with, like electrical work.
“The demolition,” she said, “was the hardest part.” It took five months, working part-time, and recruiting friends to help.
Once the RV was stripped down to the bare walls, the fun part started. The camper, once a boring brown, is now finished in tasteful white and gray. The kitchen has white cabinets and bead-board paneling, an oven, stove and microwave and blue gingham-check curtains on the windows. The counters are a combination of gray and white synthetic material that looks like quartz and butcher block.
The living area is bright and airy, with flowing white privacy curtains. There’s plenty of storage, and a flat-screen TV is tucked into the built-in shelving unit. A dining table and chairs, and two couches with animal print pillows, offer comfortable seating.
Mia shows off the remodeled interior, a far cry from the stripped-down RV. Gutting it took five months. Her advice? ‘If you have a dream, keep at it.’
The bathroom has a corner shower and the bedroom has more built-in storage and a headboard that resembles black subway tile.
Finding a place to donate the camper has come with its own challenges. She was just a day away from donating the RV when a friend’s research showed her that her ideals didn’t line up with those of the charity. The group wanted to auction the RV for cash and use the cash to help the homeless.
“I wanted someone to live in it,” Mia said. Throughout the project, Mia had imagined a person making the space a home. Plus, she questioned how much of the proceeds from the sale or auction would actually go to help homeless people.
Mia had to make a difficult decision and a difficult phone call. Her mother, Simone Bonutti, is the vice mayor of Manalapan and could have easily handled the matter, but Mia didn’t ask her to do that.
Eventually, Mia connected with the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States in Ocala. The VFW is a nonprofit service organization that can help veterans find housing — and hope.
Mia learned the VFW planned to use the RV as part of transitional housing to get veterans off the street until the organization found permanent housing. The RV would be a temporary home for a plethora of people passing through the Ocala facility on their way to self-sufficiency.
“It seemed like a good fit,” Mia said. But that plan didn't pan out and as of late February, nearly two years since she hatched the RV idea, Mia was in search of other options.
Mia, now a senior, hoped to have the issue resolved to let her focus on lacrosse season, which she calls “long pants season” because of her leg bruises. Mia is team captain and goalie, after first being recruited from the soccer team, where she’d already proved fearless on the field.
“I just stay focused and keep my eye on the ball,” she said. “I know my teammates are there to help me out.”
In the fall, Mia will move to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia, where she’ll study chemical engineering. She says CE is a degree with lots of applications and opportunity, and that a path heavy on math and science and light on English fits her.
Mia, the oldest of six kids, says being big sister brings a lot of responsibility — especially when she was the only kid with a driver’s license and everyone else needed rides.
At 18, she already has one patent with her dad and a few in the works. For athletes, pierced earrings and sports add up to a problem, so Mia and her father designed and patented unisex sports-safe earrings.
Mia also makes stuffed animals and hats for the babies in the NICU at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, where her aunt is a nurse.
“My mother calls me a grandma because I like to knit and crochet,” Mia says with a laugh.
But really, Mia likes doing things for other people. Her altruism even got her a bit of national attention: Kelly Clarkson’s daytime television show has asked Mia to submit a video about her project.
A significant part of the Oxbridge Academy philosophy is its focus on character development within a culture of kindness.
Mia and her classmates take the “kindness” seriously, participating in canned food drives and other volunteer activities. It goes hand in glove with the self-directed independent study programs that ask students to tackle real-life issues.
“I learned a lot from the project,” Mia said, “but I think the biggest life lesson was: If you have a dream, keep at it. Nothing happens overnight.”
Photo provided by Mia Bonutti
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