Kimberly is a first-generation Latina, born and raised in South Los Angeles. As the daughter of hard-working undocumented parents, education, well-being, and cultural pride was the core of her upbringing. Throughout her years in public education, she realized how poorly funded her schools were, causing her teachers to create GoFundMe accounts to receive monetary donations for classroom textbooks. At Fremont High School, Kimberly was introduced to Community Coalition through one of their High School Organizing Chapters, FREYEA, and was inspired by SCYEA (South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action), alums who fought for equitable resources in the early 2000s and realized those resources were still not available to her peers 20 years later. She helped create lasting change alongside other South LA youth through different educational equity campaigns.

Soon after graduating from Fremont, Kimberly joined CoCo’s Civic Engagement department as team lead and outreach organizer for campaigns such as Prop 15, Measure EE, and Healthy Futures CA while pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. After daily interactions and heartfelt conversations with community members suffering from the inequalities and disinvestments in South Central, Kimberly was determined to learn and understand the power-building strategies that addressed the root causes of poverty, mass incarceration, and the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2021, Kimberly graduated from CoCo’s Community Organizing Fellowship. She learned about these strategies through organizing experts and direct immersion in local issue campaigns (i.e., Justice Reform, Land Use, Economic Development). She joined the SCYEA department as a Youth Organizer.

In Fall 2022, Kimberly transitioned to CoCo’s Finance Department to support the organization’s accounting functions and daily operations and continues to organize in external spaces. Kimberly serves as Los Angeles Council District 9’s Youth Council Member, is a fellow in the inaugural BiNational Confident Futures Fellowship, and is a fellow in UCLA-CDU’s Dana Center for Neuroscience and Society Fellowship. Kimberly will soon graduate from CSU Dominguez Hills and looks forward to her leadership pipeline evolving at CoCo.

Fun Fact: Kimberly is a proud Gen Z content creator who enjoys capturing, documenting, and creating fashion, lifestyle, and social justice content across TikTok and Instagram.