ELIZABETH HERNANDEZ

Elizabeth was born and raised in Watsonville, CA and graduated in 2013 from Pajaro Valley High School. She attended the University of California, Davis for five years after high school and one year at Cabrillo College during her college career path . With that note, she wants to mention that college will be filled with many challenges and it is perfectly fine to take longer to finish your path. Her journey of six years in college gave her the proper amount of time to flourish. She always wanted to pursue a career where she would come back to Watsonville and offer her knowledge, higher education experiences, and passion towards environmental based education and climate justice activism.

Furthermore, she reached out to her local community members to seek employment opportunities after college. One piece of advice that she would give high schoolers and current college students is to network and volunteer. If you want to give back to your community, then you need them to know what you have to offer and build connections with community members and or organizations. It is important to show you have an interest and keep strong communication. That's how you become well known and can potentially have a greater amount of opportunities offered. That is why she is now an Office Assistant for Regeneracion- Pajaro Valley Climate Action. She began as an Environmental Justice Activist volunteer and soon after was offered a part time position to assist Executive Director, Nancy Faulstich. Working for Regeneracion has been an ultimate privilege and brought more opportunities towards her success. She gained growth as a young professional and met other local non-profits to build upon her network. Therefore, she is now also a Garden Educator for Life Lab. She will be teaching garden-based education to local PVUSD elementary schools.

Moreover, she joined the R.I.S.E team to explore her skills and see how she can offer her personal higher education experiences. She felt inspired to share her knowledge being a recent college graduate. She feels strongly about the importance of bringing equity in our education system and given we are a low-income community, we are not a properly funded district. For this reason, she chose to become a co-founder with these lovely and inspiring young ladies, to be a resource and motivate students of PVUSD to seek higher education.

Fun fact: She was certified as a Bike Repair Mechanic in her junior year of high school. She loves cycling and has done bike trips from Santa Cruz to Monterey in a five-hour ride.