Student Life

Senior Begins Her Entrepreneurial Journey

Hannah Leto is a current senior attending Mount Dora Christian Academy. She has attended MDCA since preschool and even learned to walk in the early childhood center while her older sister, Emily, was in the four year old class! Hannah has always had a huge passion for art and creating things.

“I have tried just about every medium you can think of, and I was constantly switching to find my favorite. Recently, I discovered macrame. Macrame was very popular in the 70s, and has recently made a huge comeback. I decided to try it out while in quarantine this year, and it quickly became a hobby of mine. I began creating as many different things as I could while attempting to teach myself different techniques. I soon discovered that my friends and family loved my work and asked to buy some things from me. Quickly, more and more people bought things from me, and I sold way more than I had anticipated.” That is when she decided to try to start a small business through Instagram and sell to mainly friends and family. “I never anticipated that it would grow as quickly as it has. Over the past six months, I have been a part of different art shows, partnered with amazing women-owned small businesses, and am even featured in two local shops. I am in love with what I do and hope to continue growing as a business.”

The people that who inspired her the most are the community of womenowned businesses that have helped her throughout the process. “I did not know until recently how many awesome different local small businesses there truly were around me. It has been very inspiring to witness and learn from their journeys while creating my own. I believe that it has definitely made me stronger as a person, and especially as a woman.”

Hannah shares that one of the hardest challenges for her in starting her business as a high school student has been time management. “Juggling the many struggles of senior year, such as submitting applications and applying for scholarships, all while running a small business, can definitely become crazy sometimes. I think that through this I have learned that even when there seems to be a million things pulling you in different directions, you have to take a second to step back and breathe.”

After high school, Hannah plans to attend college on a volleyball scholarship and study graphic design. She also hopes to be able to continue to grow her business while in college.

Hannah runs her business through Instagram @handmadebyhannahleto. All of her featured items can be seen on Instagram. She also has a website where she sells all of her available products www.handmadebyhannahleto.com. Her products are even featured in three stores in Central Florida. Ruby and Rust is a store in Winter Garden that carries a variety of her products including plant hangers and wall hangings. Sweet Sassy and Southern is a boutique in

Windermere that carries a variety of her products including wall hangings and jewelry. You can also find her products in the Bloom Room in Mount Dora that carries a wide variety of plants and Hannah’s plant hangers.

Lake County Days Essay Winners

In December, three MDCA students were named winners of the Lake Country Days essay contest.

Students could choose to write their 500-word essay that answered one of the following two questions: 1. There appears to be apathy among youth today as political involvement. If given the opportunity, what would you do to change it? OR 2. Should politicians be held to a higher ethical standard than you and I?

The winners are usually awarded a VIP trip to Tallahassee, but due to COVID, students have been awarded a $500 scholarships.

Anna Davis Katelynne Sanders Leah Marshall

Student Views

From Madison Conway We all have lost something in the past year, some more than others. All of us lost freedoms and privileges we took for granted. Students across the globe have lost normalcy when it comes to their daily routine at school. And worst of all, some of us lost the people closest to us. 2020 was not kind, and I know we all fear that 2021 will not be much better. 2020 broke my heart in many ways, and I hope that 2021 finds a way to mend my spirits. Simply put, so much has happened in the last 12 months. At just 17 years old, I have experienced enough generational events to last me a lifetime. Not only have we bared witness to the desecration of our beloved world, but we have also had to make drastic changes and sacrifices in our lives. Most adults had to work from home for a period of time or, sadly, possibly lost their jobs. Many students had to transfer to virtual learning, which was a challenge for all ages. I have the utmost respect for the parents and teachers of the younger generation. I know that it is not easy. I especially admire the senior class of 2020 and the class of 2021. This year’s graduating class has not received enough recognition for their resilience and what they have accomplished, all the while not being able to make the traditional senior year memories. So, where does that leave me and the class of 2022? Due to the safety guidelines and precautionary measures Mount Dora Christian Academy has taken, I was able to start my junior year, back in August. I am blessed to be able to attend school in-person, while many cannot. My sophomore year was the peak of my social and academic achievement. I had a stable, supportive, loving friend group and my GPA was pristine. I was saddened by the reality of virtual school since I was unable to see my friends and teachers every day, but I still managed well. At the end of last school year, when we were all being virtually educated, I thrived. I got all of my work done on Monday and then had a 6-dayweekend. Unfortunately, a lot of students struggled (and still do struggle) with this type of learning format. I did not start to feel the true effects of this pandemic on my social life until a few months later. Not seeing my friends every day and the lack of daily communication damaged our friend group. I felt as if I had lost the friend group I once cherished. We are all still friends, of course, but it is not the same as it was before.

Students zoom in a class mate to work together on their class project.

Fourth grade student, Bailey Adams, video calls a classmate to work together on their math assignment. Shields have been placed at each student's desk.

Shields have been placed at each lunch table.

Academically, I did not realize the pandemic’s mental effects on me until recently. This semester, I am taking three dual enrollment classes, an AP class, and an intensive honors-level Anatomy & Physiology class. I can say without a doubt I have lost all motivation to do any of it. This mindset is out of character for me. I am your typical overachiever who doesn’t study, but still puts in enough effort to get all A’s however, this year, I am burnt out. I am too stubborn to let my grades slip too much, but the passion I once had for learning is no longer there. In subjects I adore, like English and History, I still find some academic fulfillment; but every single course I am taking feels mentally exhausting. The biggest thing this pandemic has taken away from me is my motivation. I do not say this in attempts to receive pity or as a cry for help. I know many of my peers feel this exact same way. I still have close friends, I still enjoy going to school, but things are not the same. It is not a matter of, “What can be done to change this?” or, “What can be done to reverse the effects of this pandemic on our students?” The only thing that can cure this is time; so many things just need time to heal. But, don’t get me wrong, 2020 was not a continuous sad song on loop. There were some highlights and good times: rekindling an old friendship, going on outdoorsy road trips with my Golden Girls, counting down the days until I turn 18 this year, strengthening the bond I have with my mom and stepdad, finding new friends in the oddest of places, and overall spending a lot of time reflecting. This world is not always easy to navigate, nor to simply understand. We cannot always control the situation we are in; sometimes we must have patience and just ride out the storm. As cynical as I want to be and tell you about how 2020 has continued to take and take from my life, I cannot. Even in darkness, there is light; and when all else fails, we shall always have hope. And that’s what we all have to do. Hope. Hope and pray that 2021 will be the year of return: the return of normalcy and our peace. We cannot regain all of what we have lost, but we can hope to salvage what we still have.

The Show Must Go On

The secondary play, South of Broadway, was an idea that was birthed out of COVID. When school started back in the fall, it didn’t look like we would be able to do any kind of performance at all. Then, as MDCA’s administration figured out safety guidelines and procedures for sports to continue, Mrs. Abbate went to one of the school nurses, Mrs. Fleming, and asked her what social distancing might look like for us if we wanted to have a show. Actors could never be closer than six feet for more than 15 minutes at a time. That ruled out a traditional script. So, we chose a series of scenes, songs and monologues that were all under ten minutes. In addition, we sat the cast in the audience so that they would not be bunched up together backstage. Each actor performed their scene, song or monologue, and then returned to their seat in the audience during the blackout or scene change. We chose all light or comic scenes, because after months of dealing with COVID, we all needed a laugh. One thing that helped tie the pieces together was to play songs in between each scene that related to the scene before. Some songs were performed by singers. This helped give an overall flow to the show. Because the scenes were chosen for length and comic value, and they had no real connection to one another, the show needed a name. Since Broadway was, and still is, shutdown in NYC, we decided to call it “South of Broadway,” referencing our location here in Florida. In order to protect our audience, VIP tables were removed and the seating was rearranged so that families could sit together in groups of 2-6, but each group was six feet from those around them. Individual seats were sprinkled in and among other seats, and ushers were used to seat each group in the correctly sized seating. Temperature checks were taken at the door, and prepackaged concessions were available in the lobby. At the beginning and the end of the show, the actors entered and exited through a side door so that they were not in close contact with the audience. Each actor was equipped with their own microphone, even for songs, so that no two people had to touch the same handheld mic.

One of the biggest changes the secondary show had to make due to COVID was when one of the actors was quarantined. The student was going to miss the performances and the whole scene would have been cut, but Mrs. Abbate and Mrs. Perkins figured out a way to zoom and project him onto the large screen above the stage. His partner was on stage while he was projected, and it worked out very well. They knew the scene so well that they were able to perform it even with one of the members not being able to actually see the other. He was acting based on what he heard only!