I moved to Yakima in 2013 after living in a handful of other states that never felt like home. The Yakima Valley ended up becoming that place for me. My educational background is in sociology, and I spent a few years working “boots on the ground” with vulnerable populations in our community. Additionally, I volunteer as a Crisis Counselor for the Crisis Text Line. Having personally experienced what it’s like to fall through society’s cracks, I carry that feeling with me in everything I do. It’s a big part of what drives me to want something better for our communities, and to lend myself to supporting vulnerable populations.

I am an endlessly curious person and tend to dive deep into things that catch my interest, which happens to be a lot of things. Fortunately or unfortunately, video games happens to be one of those passions of mine. You can find me demoing new games, looking into developer content, trying my hand at coding, reviewing game mechanics and awing at creative story-telling & visuals. I also enjoy running, horror movies, hiking, rowing, board games, puzzles, and, as I get older, watching birds at my feeder.

When the protests of 2020 erupted over the country, I felt the urgency of the moment like everyone else did; but I also felt the weight of knowing this call was not new. It was a call we had been hearing for generations. I had marched, I had signed petitions, I had done all this before; and this time, it didn’t feel like enough. This time I had developed skills that I thought could be useful to the organizers, and I offered them.

For me, SAFE represents a very common cycle for regular people just trying to get their representatives to listen to them. The people in power just try to get them to be quiet and move on. Only this time, the community did not just sit down and shut up; and because of that, SAFE now has the resources to be able to improve people’s lives in an actually tangible way. And I think that’s pretty awesome.