About

Funny story how I got to this moment. 

I was sitting in my Economics class with hundreds of thoughts in my mind. Thinking of all the reading I had to do, how I needed to pass this class, how I needed to do laundry, how I wasn't going to get paid till neeext week, how I needed to find the money to pay for my books so I thought to myself...scholarships! I typed on my laptop search engine "first generation scholarships" then "minority scholarships" then "Latina scholarships” and “low-income scholarships.”   

There was one organization that interested me in my google search and that was the organization World Merit. World Merit provides "opportunities for those who take action." There was an opportunity to apply for a contest called "The Most Amazing Entrepreneur" and the contest required me to submit a 2-3 minute video of a project or business you are very passionate about. I created a community event called Oakes Free Swap Meet (now called Swapnotshop) at UC Santa Cruz. I decided to ask my great friend Saoi to record the event mainly because my phone camera was broken and because she ROCKS at filming. She sent me all the footage after the community event and I began to edit my video. 

I finally submitted my video to World Merit and hoped for the best. 

February 12, 2016 - I got an email from Zita who worked with World Merit and said that I was one of the finalists for the contest. There were three other finalists; Estefania who is from Mexico, Mark is from the Philippines and Jovana is from Serbia. I just thought wow this was literally a world wide competition! Zita recommended the finalists share our videos on social media as much as we can. So I texted my mom, dad, sisters, cousins, friends, aunts, uncles, dogs, cats to share my video! And I am so thankful they did. 

February 14, 2016 - I woke up the next morning with a Facebook message from Jovana saying “Congrats!” Then, I quickly checked my email and Zita said to me that I was the winner of the “MOST AMAZING ENTREPRENEUR” contest.

The prize for this contest was a fully paid trip to Pennsylvania to attend the “East Coast 1Life Fully Lived Conference” in May. The only thing I knew about the conference was that there were going to be several successful entrepreneurs and amazing speakers. I was ecstatic to know I was going to go to Pennsylvania for the first time and have the opportunity to attend an entrepreneurial conference. 

Little did I know that I would get an email asking me if I could give a 10 minute speech about my story and a few weeks later I was standing in front of an amazing crowd filled with entrepreneurs ready to listen. So here it is.