Advocacy & Community

In 2024, I testified before the California Senate and Assembly Education Committees on SB 897, the bill that made California's District of Choice program permanent, working alongside Senator Josh Newman and advocates from more than fifteen school districts statewide.

District of Choice is the program that let me attend Walnut Valley schools instead of the district I would have been assigned to by default. I'd already lived what the bill was arguing for, so testifying for other students to have the same option felt like a tremendous honor and responsibility.

The full hearing is archived through CalMatters' Digital Democracy project. My testimony starts around the 24:50 mark of the official hearing record.

For my Gold Award, I translated a court-mandated training manual into Spanish for the Latinx families it was supposed to serve, since the original English-only version was failing to fully support the community it was meant to reach.

I also built mental health resource kits and educational materials for youth in foster care, and gave trauma-informed presentations to the school community.

Girl Scouts later recognized me as a Lifetime Member.

My advocacy work started at Bithiah's Family Services when I was six, volunteering at fundraisers, galas, and resource distribution events for foster and adoptive families. That's grown into a thirteen-year relationship, and since 2020 I've served as Coordinator of Volunteers, leading a bilingual initiative that has translated more than 80 pages of materials into Spanish and helped coordinate more than 50 supply distribution events. More detail on that role is on the Experience page.