Staff Spotlight: Maria Gandarilla Awarded at CSULB

Maria Gandarilla, Youth Institute Alumni, Y Staff

Named Outstanding Graduate of the Year by the School of Health and Human Services at California State University Long Beach

Maria Gandarilla, Youth Institute Class of 2004, was named the Outstanding Graduate of the Year by California State University faculty this March, 2011. This honor was bestowed on Maria at a special ceremony held at CSULB. Maria has grown up at our Community Development YMCA. She and her family participated in our JCPP program back in the late 90’s. She was a part of our CORAL after school programs ten years ago and was a part of our Youth Institute from 2004 to present day. Maria went to CSULB to study Social Work. She gets her undergraduate degree BSW this May and will go into the MSW program at CSULB this fall.

We are so proud of Maria’s accomplishments and wish to extend our congratulations to another one of the YMCA Youth Institute success stories during the past ten years. You are a part of our YMCA family and will always have a place here at our YMCA!

By Bob Cabeza (VP, Community Development)

Change Agent Productions Builds The Children's Institute's Technology Lab

Change Agent Production's recently finished building a new technology lab for The Children’s Institute in Los Angeles. The Children’s Institute wanted to build a technology lab for their under-served community where youth can come and create digital media pieces. Everything from music, graphics, short films, photography and much more! Change Agent Productions helped in designing the lab, purchasing the equipment and setting up all the computers. There was a lot of hard work and planning on both ends of this project and the pay off will affect many of Los Angeles' youth. For more pictures of the project visit our Change Agent Productions website: www.changeagentsproductions.org/node/541

AAUW STEM Career Conference Field Trip

My name is Samantha, I am an 8^th Grader at Burcham K-8 School. On Friday, February 26, 2010. I went on a field trip with my YMCA/WRAP After School Program to Long Beach City College (Liberal Arts Campus) for the annual AAUW (American Association of University Women) STEM Career Conference. I had a great experience. Before we went on the field trip, we had to fill out a paper and choose which career workshops we were interested in. There were so many choices to make. The choices were architect, banker, chemical engineer, computer programmer, coroner, horticulturist, marine biologist, and public health nurse. I had to pick my top three I wanted. I picked coroner, chemical engineer and marine biologist. The conference was in the new building at LBCC. When we arrived to LBCC, there were many different girls attending from different schools. There were a lot of middle school girls and also high school girls.

In the beginning, we all went into the main building we listened to a keynote speaker. She was talking to us about what she did and that she had a very challenging life growing up and that she was not ashamed to tell us girls her story. She told us that she had a boyfriend that was a gang member and he got her pregnant and it messed up her life. She shared that she really wanted to finish her education. She said she was no longer with her gang member boyfriend and she finally did graduate from Cal State Dominguez. Her story meant something to me because she went through a lot of challenges but she pushed forward to finish her school and go on to finish college. I want to finish high school, go to college and accomplish my goals. She told us not to give up, to finish college and not to hang out with street boys or have boyfriends in high school. We should focus on school and achieve all goals.

The two workshops I attended were the chemical engineer and the coroner ones. Chemical engineering was a fun experience because I always thought that the factory would be harmful to us. The speaker was one of the employees of the factory and she told us why she works there. One reason she told us when she was a kid she wanted to create make –up and the perfect acne product. After she told us how the factory works, she then had us do an experiment that was so fun but slimy. We made some type of goo that is easy to make at home. The Coroner has a job that you have to have guts for to do. I would try to handle the job but the lady that was our teacher had courage. The fist step to take care of the dead body is that she has to check how did that person die. Second step if their friend or someone in the car survives they have to put their name on the toe tag. There are different types of death like suicide, murder, and overdose. I enjoyed the coroner a lot because I didn’t know that there was a coroner I thought that the police or ambulance paramedics took care of dead people. It really opened my eyes that people there are people in charge of just finding out how people die. The coroner was very funny and I learned a lot from her.

Both of the subjects that I attended were fun and I can’t pick a favorite. I learned so much from and I loved it. This experience gave me ideas on what kind of career I can have. It was an experience I will not forget.

For more information on AAUW, visit their website: www.aauw.org

Written By Samantha T.

Change Agent Productions Keynotes at 21st Century Learning Centers Conference in Alaska

Change Agents was asked to Keynote this year at the 21st Century Learning Centers Conference in Juneau, Alaska! It was a great opportunity for the Change Agent staff to go up north and tell their story to all of the conference attendees. Here is the link to the photos from the trip. www.changeagentsproductions.org/node/440

2011 Campaign Victory Dinner

March 3, 2011 YMCA of Greater Long Beach met once again at the Sycamore Centre in Lakewood, CA to share successes of this years campaign. The night was opened up by our very own Angel Ramirez. Angel has been a part of the Community Development YMCA since 1st grade. He is a Youth Institute graduate/alumni and was recently accepted to Cal State University Long Beach. The night continued with inspirational stories from all the branch leaders highlighting where all the donations end up. Bob Cabeza, VP of Community Development, shared about Maria Gandarilla, also a youth institute alumni, who recently received the award for most outstanding student of the year for the College of Health and Human Services at CSULB. All the stories were inspiring and left a feeling of success whether or not goals were met. The night ended with a video produced by Change Agent Productions which put a spotlight on all the hard work the association put forth.