Mercedes, TX (KRGV) — South Texas ISD Science Academy senior Mariem Banales is the newest honoree in Channel 5 News’ Student of the Week series after creating the McAllen Little Free Pantry, publishing a book, and building an app.
She is also a community volunteer.
“For years, my mother and I would distribute meals around in downtown McAllen. And after we had left, I would still think about the homeless, and I wanted to do something more consistent,” Mariem said.
That is why Mariem created the McAllen Little Free Pantry at the corner of Galveston Avenue and 17th Street.
“There’s a lot of people around there that are people in need. And so from there, I started stocking the pantry with food, with clothes, with hygiene products, and just essentials in general,” Mariem said.
Today, the McAllen Little Free Pantry serves hundreds of people every month.
In the classroom, Mariem likes challenging activities. She has already taken 15 AP classes, including AP biology.
“Being able to see her journey and her maturity academically and personally has been a wonderful experience,” AP biology teacher Cesar Garcia said. “She’s very, very passionate about what she does. She is very dedicated to her studies, and it’s a complete joy to be able to work with students like that.”
Her family says Mariem has always been a sharp student. In middle school, she set a record on a math program called Reasoning Mind by answering 1,917 math problems in a row.
“No one had ever gotten over the three-digit mark. And so they had to increase it to four digits in the system,” Mariem said.
One of her proudest achievements is the book “Trichotillomania, what your child doesn’t know how to explain.” She published it last year after researching a hair-pulling disorder called trichotillomania.
One of her family members was diagnosed with it, and she wanted to help.
“I tried to find resources online, and most of my family speaks Spanish. And so I realized that there weren’t many articles or websites about this disorder in Spanish,” Mariem said.
Mariem published a research paper that later led to the book. She also developed an app called Trico 360, which she coded by herself.
Through that work, Mariem helped build an online community for trichotillomania. It has brought together more than 3,000 Spanish speakers from more than 20 countries.
“When she decides to do something, she doesn’t let go of it. She takes it and runs with it and gets to work. That’s something I admire about her,” Mariem’s father, Victor Banales, said.
Mariem took part in prestigious programs at MIT and Yale. Those are two of the schools she is considering.
She would like to study biochemistry and use her research to continue helping people.
This fall, Channel 5 News will be highlighting 10 students who shine in and out of the classroom.
The students have already been selected.
Click here for more Student of the Week stories.
Watch the video above for the full story.
Source: www.krgv.com
