Salvador Mateo

Throughout his high school career, Salvador took it upon himself to take advantage of everything that was offered to him.  He spent most of his 4 years in high school learning about his community, the people in it and how he can help them.  He always thought it was impossible, until his sophomore year when he spent the summer at UC Berkeley attending the summer legal fellowship program where he learned about the different types of laws that exist and how we can use them in the right situation.  He was an intern for Mayor Quan when she was still a Councilmember.  He graduated from the program and received a certificate from Barbara Lee and a check for $1,400.00 for the summer.  He didn’t stop there; his junior year, he spent in a program called Youth and Government where he was given the role of lead defense attorney for a mock trial that was held in the capital of CA. This went for over 6 months, and he did it during school as an internship.  As soon as the summer came around Salvador wanted to learn how to put all of these new skills and knowledge into effect in his community, so he was an intern for the Rose Foundation.  During his time there, he was given an externship with The Center for Environmental Health (C.E.H).  As he learned about environmental racism and pollution, he was also learning that most of the fake jewelry and clothes sold to teenagers sometimes had high levels of lead and cadmium which were not permitted in the stores.  He was able to go shopping and find a piece of jewelry that had lead in it, and C.E.H. sent a letter saying to take it off the shelves or face the consequences of taking it to court.  He learned a lot that summer; he learned enough to realize that people in his community were living under racism and heavy pollution from the port.   As soon as his senior year came by, he worked the whole year with Planting Justice in Mandela High's school garden that Planting Justice helped build.  During that time, his art teacher Ms. Zimmerman gave him and his friend Julio an opportunity to start a venture.  They decided to attend Ashokas Youth Ventures for about 10 weeks, where they started their venture E.A.T.G.R.U.B. (Enhancing Access To Gardens and Revolutionizing Urban Backyards) and were given $1,000.00 in seed money.  When Salvador graduated high school, Gavin and Haleh, co-founders of Planting Justice gave him the opportunity to work at Planting Justice. He was able to have a job right out of high school and work in his community by empowering people and giving them the chance to grow their own food.