About Me

Profile

About: I was born in San Antonio, TX on February 28, 1994. I was raised by single mother who was my number one fan in everything I did. I developed my passion for helping people by watching my mom go to work every day. She chose a profession where she would directly affect the lives of the children she worked with on a daily basis. When I was younger she worked in the pediatric ICU but gave that up and became a school nurse so she would have a schedule that would allow her to go to every single one of my extracurricular function. While my mother worked in the medical sector, I had both my aunt and grandma serving the special needs youth in the Valley by being elementary special education teachers. Growing up I had all of these spectacular women in my life who taught me the importance of giving back to the community at a very young age.
I graduated from Canyon Lake High School which was a new high school in the Comal Independent School District. It was in these four years where my passions for fighting social injustice finally started coming into fruition. During this time I had the opportunity to charter a service organization in which we became very involved in giving back to the community. Our primary goal was to try to make a positive impact on the youth in my community.
Currently, I am a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin. I am a Government major in the College of Liberal Arts and am pursuing a certificate through the Business Foundations Program. I am in a program called the Polymathic Scholars Program in which I am given the opportunity to create my own field of study. My drive to take action against social injustice inspired my field of study to be on Basic Human Rights. One way that I give back to the university is through my job on campus. I work as a Student Admissions Ambassador for the Office of Admissions. My job entails giving tours to prospective students and sharing my love for the university.
Once I graduate I hope to pursue a Master’s degree through the LBJ School of Public Affairs. The specific program is called Master’s International which encompasses a degree in Public Affairs with a Non-Profit Management specialization. In addition to the traditional course work I would complete two years of volunteer work through the Peace Corps. We are all put on this earth for a reason and I think it is our responsibility as a human race to leave it better than we found it and this is just on avenue in which I hope to do so.

Why I Ride

I ride for my aunt who dedicated her life to serving the special needs children in her community. I ride for the time she missed out on with them too. I ride for the times I was not more involved with the process. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and won the battle. However it wasn’t until this past Christmas that I quite understood that the fight is never over. I came back home after my first semester of college and thought my entire family would be waiting for me at home like we did every Christmas. This was not the case. They all were still in the Valley and my mom told me that we were having Christmas down there because my aunt had a doctor’s appointment. It was not until we were almost there that she told me she they found another lump and that she may have cancer again. We were going to go with her to the appointment to get the results of the biopsy. In a matter of a few seconds my biggest worries were getting my final exam grades back and trying to figure out how many tamales I could fit into my stomach that night, to the results of her biopsy. On top of that, earlier that year, one of my uncles had passed away from acute myeloid leukemia, after a long hard-fought battle. His two special needs children were left without a father and the entire Valadez family missed his corny jokes at our expense. A few months later my grandfather also died of complication due to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had gone to celebrate Christmas with this part of my family first that year. This was the first Christmas without them and things were different. There wasn’t as much laughter in the room as there normally was. Christmas was not as happy of a time as it once was. Needless to say I wanted anything but to have to have another conversation about cancer, but who does? So there I was right alongside another family member looking cancer straight in the face. A few days before Christmas day we went in and saw the doctor. We were all anxiously awaiting the results when my aunt finally came out with a thumbs up! It was the best Christmas present any of us could ask for.
I ride for the countless members of my family who have been affected by cancer. I ride for my three aunts, Irene Olivarez, Mary Alice Flores, and Liliana Valadez, who have battled breast cancer. Cancer does not only affect the person with the disease but all of those around them. I would like to be that support system that many people need and to share what cancer means to me. I ride to spread hope to those who just want one more Christmas, one more birthday, one more day.