Hometown Hero Nominees: Dr. Elizabeth Miller, Valentina Velasquez, Ruby Vasquez, Susan True

Every week we will throw the spotlight on several nominees for Hometown Heroes 2020. Be sure to nominate your heroes before 3pm PT, Monday, November 23, 2020.

Nominee: Dr. Elizabeth Miller

Dr. Miller is the Medical Director, UC Santa Cruz, Student Health Center. She works tirelessly not only to support UC Santa Cruz students during this challenging time by providing medical services, including COVID-19 testing for students who are symptomatic. She also has been the medical expert behind the launch of UC Santa Cruz' molecular diagnostic testing lab, which started on May 1 and was itself a Herculean effort by scientists, staff and campus leadership. Throughout 2020, she has demonstrated compassion, care and integrity, working long hours and with a constant willingness to help.

Nominee: Valentina Velasquez

In the Spring, when COVID first started to impact our community, Digital NEST members were eager to take action to help solve community issues and were turning to the NEST for guidance and resources, to address this the NEST Corps program was born. With Valentina's guidance, needs expressed by the community were addressed, the members created videos to encourage children to read more during SIP, they created a SC County COVID resources page with info in English and Spanish that was especially helpful to farmworkers, they promoted a program for safely getting out and about during the summer months, and they helped create and deliver many other valuable resources for the community. NEST Corps is having a big impact on the community and because of role models like Valentina, youth are playing an important role in helping their community and becoming the Home Town Heroes of the future.

Nominee: Ruby Vasquez

Ruby Vasquez is an educator in PVUSD, Mexican traditional dance instructor, mother, community organizer, and the lead organizer for the Watsonville Campesino Appreciation Caravan. When COVID hit our community an incredible amount of support went out to the essential workers needed to help our community through this challenging time. Firefighters, health care providers, and teachers were among some that were being recognized. Ruby noticed that farmworkers were missing from the conversation. They weren't being seen or recognized for their constant work through pandemics. On April 11, Ruby along with other community members organized a caravan of cars to go out to the fields to say thank you. This movement was launched. Since then Ruby and her team have gone out twice a week to say thank you, take cold drinks, PPE, and most importantly information on how to be safe. Doing all of this in Spanish and Mixteco. Soon after the Watsonville caravan other caravans have sprung up all over the country. Even the Rachel Maddow show highlighted the work that Ruby was doing here in the community. I strongly advocate for Ruby to be recognized. She brings visibility to the invisible, respect to the disrespected, and makes our entire community safer.

Nominee: Susan True

Susan True and her team at the SC Community Foundation have worked tirelessly to upright fundraising campaigns and to deploy those funds to get to the needy as quickly and directly as possible. Collaborating with multiple organizations is no easy task. Especially when you are dealing with so many crises happening at once. The diplomacy, mentoring, skillful assessment of the need, infrastructure to quickly upright a campaign, are just a few skills and characteristics that she and her team have exhibited. Their days are very long at the Foundation because the demand is so high. Here are a few examples:

• Covid response: https://www.cfscc.org/funds/covid-19-local-response-fund

• Fire response: Survivors who lost it all, first responders, disaster volunteers, and frontline nonprofits like Mountain Community Resources, Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department, and the Volunteer Center— are benefiting from nearly $400,000 in Fire Response Fund grants to date.

• Ride Out the Wave: Susan’s organization was one of the first to provide matching funds for the Ride Out the Wave campaign which has delivered over $500,000 to businesses who were financially impacted by Shelter-in-Place.

In addition to initiating fundraising campaigns, Susan and team are making connections throughout the community to bring people together to help navigate our new normal. From the SC County Health Department, to UC Santa Cruz, to the downtown association and more, Susan has encouraged partnership and collaboration to help our entire community.