A fundraiser that aimed to support Central Valley students in furthering their education was held in Southwest Bakersfield on Sat, Sept 2.
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00:00 a fundraiser held in southwest Bakersfield over the holiday weekend to
00:04 support Central Valley students and furthering their education with more on
00:08 how it will impact the community. Here's 23 abc's Ruby Rivera with our
00:11 current kindness. Youth leaders have held fundraisers before, but event
00:15 organizers say this is the first time where they've been able to partner with
00:18 all local vendors saying Saturday's event is a way to not only support
00:22 students and their education, but as a way to get more vendors involved in
00:25 their community. Us being a smaller non profit starting here in Kern County,
00:30 being able to partner with cubbies, who's another local um business and
00:35 organization is truly amazing to where it's benefiting both parties.
00:38 Executive director for youth to leaders Gabriel Adame says partnering locally
00:43 allows them to better achieve their goal of connecting with the community
00:46 and is grateful for the vendors who came out in support of their cause.
00:49 Adame says attractions like face painting, a bounce house and the DJ
00:53 were important to add as he says a variety is key when trying to better
00:57 connect with the community. Many of the vendors I spoke with said they were
01:00 grateful for events like this as it allows them to expand as well to get
01:04 myself involved to participate in events like this one. They're helping
01:09 young kids to the education. So for me it's very important to be out there in
01:16 the community for these people. Local face painter Maria Rodriguez says being
01:20 a part of education related events is important to her as she says she didn't
01:24 have the chance to graduate and wants not only her kids but the younger
01:27 generation to have that opportunity to do things like jobs they don't want to
01:31 do. So they study and they continue going to school and they be somebody in
01:35 this world will probably have better leaders in this community. A portion of
01:39 saturday's profits will go directly toward youth to leaders efforts.
01:42 Program coordinator fellow for youth to leaders Eric Plata Torres says being
01:46 able to give back to students is important to him as he was once in their
01:50 shoes. Prior to his current position, Plata Torres says he was originally in
01:54 the non profits migrant program. It brings me a lot of joy and it's a very
01:57 rewarding feeling helping out other students where I was in their shoes at
02:02 one point and going out to the high schools and helping out them, helping
02:07 them out, apply for their respective financial aid application. It's just a
02:10 very rewarding feeling. Adame says he enjoys being able to see prior students
02:15 continue in the work and wants people to know that there are resources out
02:18 there for anyone who needs it. It's about the students, right? It's the
02:21 students that we're helping to get them um you know closer to their goal of
02:26 getting into higher education, getting into college and then organizers say
02:29 they're happy with saturday's turnout and want to create more events like
02:32 this in the future with their overall goal being to expand and include more
02:36 local vendors in Southwest Bakersfield for beer of era 23 abc news connecting
02:41 you.