Saidee Rinco just wants to give back to her Immokalee community. That’s why the Immokalee High School senior devotes much of her time to the Beta Club, which focuses on helping local people and charities.
Early on the first Saturday of each month, instead of sleeping in or enjoying a day off from school with her friends, Saidee hands out uniforms, socks, and clothes to families in need through Noah’s Attic.
“You get to see many of the families coming back every month,” Saidee said. “It makes you feel good that you are serving your community.”
Saidee gets donations from club members, church members, and community members. She also helps organize goodie bags for the fire department.
“The bags have candy and sweet notes,” she said. “We just wanted to thank them.”
Last March, Saidee was in charge of Beta Week and decided to create care packages for the women’s shelter. She encouraged club members to bring in everything from baby food and clothes to snacks and treats. She also organized treats and notes for deployed military and a senior living facility.
April Goodnight, Immokalee High School teacher and Beta sponsor, said Saidee has always been a leader and a giving person.
“Even in pre-k, she didn’t want kids to be alone,” Goodnight described.
“She takes them under her wing. She doesn’t pass judgment. She is just such a leader. Saidee comes up with amazing ideas. She has always been super nice and so kind, but she is also a leader. She always puts other people first. She just has that natural ability to be kind to everybody. Everybody just falls in love with her.”
Change for the better
Saidee’s efforts goes beyond Beta. She and her friends created Students Advocating for Change. “We are so passionate about what is going on in the world. We wanted to see what we can do to change things and not just sit still and let things happen. The care packages were the start of everything.”
For example, the students saw the difficulties farm workers are facing, and decided to make care packages for them. The group partnered with FGCU, collected items from the community, and delivered the care packages to farm workers at bus stops in the Immokalee area.
This new advocacy group isn’t stopping at care packages.
Saidee also wants Students Advocating for Change to concentrate on being a voice for preventing school shootings.
“We wanted to fight for more protection for our schools. It is important to advocate for what our community needs, rather than what the county thinks we need. Everyone outside Immokalee views Immokalee like we are on a whole different planet. They don’t know Immokalee. It’s about advocating for Immokalee and what we need and having pride in our town.”
Saidee is also part of Best Buddies, which pairs traditional students with students with special needs.
“Every Friday during lunch, we do an activity with the ESE kids,” she said.
“For pep rallies, we help them make posters. We do arts and crafts. I love it because you get to integrate with them. A lot of the time, they are separated from everybody, so you get a peek into their world. These kids are just like everyone else.”
Saidee’s dedication to helping others shows in the wide variety of ways she gives back. She made snuggies for animals at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, providing warmth to rabbits and birds in their care. She organized Thanksgiving food boxes for families who needed extra support during the holiday season. At school, she helps run a student food pantry stocked by the Harry Chapin Food Bank. She also took part in a community street cleanup through the school’s JROTC program.
“I saw on Facebook that Major Stewart, who runs JROTC [at Immokalee High School], was doing it by himself, so I wanted to help him,” she said. “We cleaned the sides of Lake Trafford and Immokalee Drive.”
Role models
Saidee says there are several reasons why she does so much for her community.
“I know what it feels like to be alone,” she admitted. “We should never make anyone feel left out. We all have the same insecurities. We all have the same thoughts. We are all people.”
She credits her dad, who is director of the Benison Center, a nonprofit in Immokalee that helps link people to resources in times of devastation, for teaching her the importance of giving back to the community.
“After Hurricane Irma there was a need in the community. Dad was one of the Benison Center founders,” she said.
Saidee attributes her work ethic to her mother. “I get a lot of myself from my mom. She is such a hard worker. She is always putting her best out there to help. She has always been my biggest role model.”
A bright future
Saidee is looking forward to her senior year and doing more for the community and her future. She is now drum major in the Immokalee High marching band.
“I am hoping I can be a really good leader,” she said.
The senior also has big plans for after graduation, and hopes to attend Florida State University.
“I am torn between going to school for medicine or music,” she said. “Being a music teacher would be lovely. My main goal is to come back to the community to help with either health care or music.”