Boca teen, aspiring astronaut recognized for volunteerism

By Samantha Frank, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

     Like many children, Christina Zarrilli was dreaming big when, at 8 years old, she told her parents she wanted to become an astronaut. One trip to Kennedy Space Center was all it took.

[Photo at left: Christina Zarilli, a cadet lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol, conducts a uniform inspection on Cadet Master Sgt. Zachary Weinbaum. Zarilli, a Florida Atlantic University High School student, recently was named a distinguished finalist by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. Photo: Eliza Gutierrez, The Post)]

Nearly a decade later, she hasn't lost sight of her dream, and she appears to be on her way to making it a reality.

The 16-year-old suburban Boca Raton resident is a junior at Florida Atlantic University High School, a full dual enrollment public high school on the college's Boca Raton campus. The program allows students in grades nine through 12 to earn high school credits and university course hours simultaneously.

"In order to become an astronaut, I'll be in school for a bazillion years," Zarrilli said. "So I might as well get ahead a little bit."

Zarrilli, an only child, jumped from being home-schooled to attending class on a large university campus at the beginning of her ninth-grade year.

"It's a shock being in a general chemistry class with 300 people," she said. "The adjustment was very hard, but now I'm used to it." In fact, she's come around to liking it.

"As a student at FAU, I get to take advantage of the many events and lectures there," she said. In college, she plans on majoring in ocean engineering or marine biology in order to prepare her to apply for an astronaut candidate position with NASA.

It was her interest in receiving an aerospace education that led her to join the cadet program of the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol the summer before sixth grade. The program provides leadership training, technical education, scholarships and career education for people between the ages of 12 and 21. Zarrilli is a cadet lieutenant colonel, one step away from the top ranking, with the Boca Raton Composite Squadron.

During the major hurricanes in recent years, she and her fellow cadets spent days delivering food and ice to elderly residents who were stuck in their buildings. "It felt really good to be helping out," Zarrilli said.

She recently was named a 2008 distinguished finalist by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program that honors young people for outstanding volunteer service to their communities. She was one of eight students in Florida recognized.

Her mother, Jackie, has been logging her daughter's community service hours through the years and said the total is now more than 4,000. But that doesn't surprise her. She remembers her daughter at 5 years old keeping company with an elderly blind woman from their church. "She would read and sing to her and take her for walks," her mother said.

Just like Zarrilli's mother, her father Vincent said he is proud of his daughter's accomplishments.

In her free time, Zarrilli stays in shape by keeping active. Her mother, who teaches at The Dance Academy of Boca Raton, inspired her to begin dancing at age 3.

"I've done every kind of dance out there," Zarrilli said. "But now I just do tap and ballet."

She also has been captain of FAU High School's soccer team for the past three years and is a certified scuba diver.

She earns spending money umpiring Little League baseball games and being a soccer referee.

Although Zarrilli makes it look easy keeping up with so many activities, her mother said that her daughter definitely works hard. "She's up until 1 or 2 in the morning," she said.

But Zarrilli can't imagine giving up anything. "I just enjoy everything so much," she said.