Yaret started coming to 826LA when she was nine-years old. Eight years later, she is now part of 826LA’s student leadership through her participation on the Youth Advisory Board.
“We were walking by and saw that the Time Travel Mart was open,” Yaret remembers. “My brother asked to go in. They told us about the store and about the tutoring program that was starting. My mom signed me up.”
At that time, Yaret was struggling with her English. After spending part of an academic school year in Mexico, Yaret felt like it took her a long time to get used to speaking in English again. Within a year of starting 826LA’s tutoring program, she was reclassified as English proficient and moved out of her bilingual class.
“Coming to 826LA and writing helped me with my grammar and spelling. It helped me with reading, too. I became more confident with speaking.”
With her immaculate white Converse high tops and sincere smile, Yaret exudes confidence. She didn’t always. “I was that shy girl that wouldn’t talk to people,” she remembers. Slowly, she made friends, and those friendships have now lasted almost half of her life. “It’s crazy how we have developed that bond. We call each other family: brother and sister. I think it comes from sharing our stories and our moments. It brings people together.”
Yaret remembers hearing one student’s moving story about her grandmother. It was really touching, she remembers. “It made me think how comfortable she was to write it and read it out loud.”
That sense of community inspired Yaret to want to give back by joining 826LA Youth Advisory Board, a representative group of students that participates in special projects and organizes outreach events. “The word to describe it would be ‘honored,’” she says. “It’s like we are the role models for the young ones. They will look up to us and know they can get to the top, too.”
This Fall, Yaret will be a senior at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School, an LAUSD magnet senior high school with a focus on serving students who plan to study in the healthcare field. She’s already thinking about what’s next for her, and how writing will play a role in her journey.
“I want to study medicine,” Yaret smiles. “I think writing will help me because you always need to write something. It will help me learn medical terms. It helps to have an imagination, too. It helps me to empathize with how a patient might feel.”
Yaret and her fellow Youth Advisory Board members used their imaginations this month when Mohawk Bend invited them into their kitchen to design their own pizzas. Students voted on their favorite, and Yaret’s creation was the clear winner! Called the “Echo Park Pride,” it features ground beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, jalapeños, and lots of cheese. You can try it for yourself this August as part of the Piece of the Pie program. $4 from each pizza will go back towards supporting 826LA and our free educational programs.
Yaret loves pizza (“I could eat pizza every day”), and seeing her Echo Park Pride pizza out in the world is a point of personal pride. “It’s exciting! It’s something I made, and I wouldn’t have thought someone would try something I made.”
Yaret with her fellow Youth Advisory Board members at Mohawk Bend.