I consider myself someone who is resourceful and takes initiative. My community in the Eastern Coachella Valley is predominantly Hispanic and families are denied access to clean drinking water and nutritious food as a result of institutionalized racism in underfunded communities.
To overcome this obstacle, I used my access to food networks and knowledge of community nonprofits to improve the access and awareness to resources like FIND Food Bank. Given my commitment, I was elected as Chairperson of FIND Food Bank’s: FIND Youth Advisory Council.
In FIND Youth Advisory Council (FYAC), there are two members from six participating high schools and we collectively outreached to over 500 youth. I took part in workshop meetings promoting local food resources, healthy nutritional food habits, and outreached for FIND’s youth involvement.
I trained my team of twelve on skills like public speaking, taking initiative, utilizing their networks, and publicizing our motives to improve FIND’s awareness. Moreover, with the FYAC I led food distributions and meal packaging events preparing over 100 meals for families across the Coachella Valley
My journey will aid me as a future Public Policy major as I am determined to expand my goal of resolving youth hunger in college to advocate for communities impacted by food insecurity. I am filled with gratitude to connect myself with the FYAC. We have signified the importance of advocating and educating about food insecurity, not only in our coalition, but to everyone else in the Coachella Valley who are not provided with these advantages.
“The ideas expressed in this youth advisory council members blog are part of their development as leaders of the community. One of the core learnings of FYAC is allowing our high school participants to express their ideas in a respectful and thoughtful manner. We do not edit their blog, instead we work with them to be able to express themselves, although their views are not necessarily those of the organizations.”