Lupita is in her second year with FoodWhat?!. In a conversation with Lupita in early March, she shared how many teenage youth do not have a trusted source of information on Covid. She spoke about how confusing a time this has been, how intensively it has affected her peers socially, mentally, and emotionally, and that she’d like to take action. With support from FoodWhat?! and the South County Covid Triage Group, she jumped into a plan that was coming together. Starting in March she joined the Friday South County Triage Group meetings to hear the most updated information on Covid from top county health leadership, and further relevant information from other community leaders.

She spent a few weeks digging in deeper on the County’s Health Department website on Covid to really understand how Covid is affecting the community and particularly on the equity issues in how Covid is so greatly disproportionately affecting the local LatinX Watsonville community. This work is personal as much as it is in service of the greater good. She has been making short weekly videos with the most current and relevant Covid information that are then shared with all PVUSD and COE High School students. Her goal is to be a trusted youth voice and empower her peers and their families with key information

Lupita’s efforts are aimed to ensure that the quality of life for youth, their families, and the community at large is supported in any way possible. She is taking a by youth/for youth approach. She is hoping that messaging coming from youth directly to her peers will be more effective and trusted. She is imagining that young people will see they are not alone in their questions or in their struggles due to Covid (or that of their families), and through this project they will be able to get weekly access to critical information for themselves and their families. Lupita’s prevention and activist work was born out of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her efforts are a direct response to how this pandemic has affected her peers, local youth and their families. She sees her weekly videos as a critical opportunity for youth to have direct access to trusted information delivered by a youth, for youth, rooted in youth culture, that can support them to make their own decisions on how to be safe and continue to stay safe during Covid.