Nancy first joined yli in 2018 as a youth participant with the Edison High School Friday Night Live (FNL) program in Fresno, CA, which spearheaded her involvement within yli and youth advocacy, leadership, storytelling and creative work. She has since been an active youth leader for many years within the Fresno and statewide yli programs, including Edison FNL, YALL, the kNOw youth media, the HOPE youth coalition, Calafia, REP559, Multilingual Storytelling, and ARTivism programs.
With her experience and work at yli, Nancy became involved in other organizations. In 2021, she became a We Hear You youth ambassador for the California Partners Project, and a Summer Leadership Institute youth with the Women’s Foundation, California. Then in 2023, she became a youth board member for the California School-Based Health Alliance.
Now Nancy works as a Program Assistant for the HOPE youth coalition, where she helps with programming logistics, materials, and projects, and supports youth to achieve their goal of holding online platforms accountable for the harms youth receive online and to uplift healthy positive messaging.
Nancy is also a creative and loves bringing her creativity into all her work. Many of her creative work and illustrations can be found in publications, zines, podcast covers, logos, materials and resources in the many programs and organizations she joined. She is very passionate about art and helping her community.