When Cranston High School West's award-winning competitive golfer Alexis Florio suffered a sports injury in September, she could very well have planned a pity party for herself. She was a junior, out for the season, unable to do the sport she loved and excelled in, and feeling more than a little bummed out.

"I started thinking about what I should do with all my spare time," she said. "I knew I could get upset and be depressed about it, or I could power through, overcome the injury and do something better with my recovery time.”

A self-described inspirational and upbeat person, Florio began to think about some of the extracurricular offerings available to the students at West and what she could add to the list.

"I felt like there was no club for kids where they could go to feel empowered, to discuss things with other people, and so I thought I could create a club like this,” she said.

Florio decided to call her club "Mission I'm Possible" and knew she needed a faculty advisor before she could get started.

"Alexis asked me at the end of September if I'd be her advisor for 'I'm Possible,'" Charlene Barbieri said. Barbieri is a faculty member in the CACTC Child Development program, and Florio is a student in the CACTC Medical Pathways program.

“Any time that we can help to give back to the community, we always encourage it, so I jumped at the opportunity," Barbieri said. "She was taking such a leadership role and it's just another opportunity for students to be involved."

In addition to wanting to get her peers at West involved, Florio said it was very important to her that she get her younger peers at the middle school level involved as well, and a partnership with the new Hope Highlands Middle School was set up, where former West assistant principal Alex Kanelos is now principal.

"During my middle school years, I started playing golf," Florio said. "During that time, golf wasn't the coolest sport, and when I would tell my friends that I was playing they would laugh at me. It was really hard and I had to work hard to push that negativity aside and listen to my heart and do what I wanted to do. The middle school years are a very impressionable time and it's when a lot of kids form their peer groups."

Reaching out to the middle school students will help Florio and her peers at West ensure that the students have someone to connect with if they are going through a difficult time.

"We went over there once in November and introduced our program to them and we are in the process of planning another trip back. We are hoping to start some actual community service projects with them," Florio said.

At West, the I'm Possible club already has one service project under their belts, and all members deemed it a big success. A "Winter Warm-Up" collection of hats, gloves, socks and the like was taken at West recently and donated to the students at Edgewood Highland Elementary School in Cranston.

"We collected close to 400 items, but at first we couldn't tell how successful it was going to be. We couldn't really get a handle on how much had been collected in each bin until we got it all together," Florio said. "Once we collected all the clothes, we unloaded them, sorted them and organized them, and then we saw how successful the collection had been. It was a good idea and it really paid off."

Community service was an important part of the club's mission for Florio.

"I've always done a lot of community service and I know how good it makes me feel about myself," she said. "It also allows some of the members of the group to be involved in leadership roles. These girls had to go around and make announcements during advisories. Some of them are very shy but they could go with a friend if they didn't want to go alone. It helped them work on their public speaking skills and their leadership skills."

As a start-up organization, Florio's club already hails anywhere from 15-20 girls each time it meets, depending on sports and other after school activities, and it is open to anyone who wishes to join. The group is already meeting to discuss ideas for the second semester of the year and has a few ideas already.

When Florio looks ahead, she hopes the club will only grow in strength and in number. She has her own involvement during her senior year next year and is certain that the current freshmen and sophomores will keep up the great work that has been started after she and the other upperclassmen in the group graduate.

"I have had a great start, and I have a great sounding board," she said, referring to her best friend since the seventh grade, Elizabeth DelVecchio, who is also a member of the club. "She has been the one I bounce ideas off of, and she can still remember hearing me talk about golf in middle school.

At her own mention of middle school, Florio becomes reflective once again.

"Elizabeth still remembers a poem I wrote for English class in middle school," she said. "It was called 'In the Future,' and it was about golf, and I remember reading it out loud, and I remember thinking I just had to keep on going and doing what I love."