Aiko Salinas

2023 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1200 scholarship to Aiko Salinas for their contributions to the LGBTQIA2S+ community.

Aiko (They/Them) is a 2023 Delta Charter High School graduate, who had joined Delta’s QSA in their first year of high school hoping to find community. It was during the peak of Covid-19, which had distanced everyone both physically and emotionally, that they found comfort in being among peers who could understand them. They wanted to recreate that feeling of community so they took every opportunity to learn leadership skills with the clubs provided within their school and other outside programs. Aiko became a Leadership member, which they helped turn into an interactive club with the help of the Rotary Club during their final year at Delta.

They are also a part of FoodWhat?!, a food justice youth organization as a junior staff member. They will be attending Cabrillo College in hopes of bringing kindness into the medical field as a phlebotomist. “I still want to take every chance to learn leadership skills, because there is always something new to learn.”

Jeydon Hernandez-Cordero

2021 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1,250 scholarship to Jeydon Hernandez-Cordero for their contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Jeydon is recipient of the 2020 Queer Youth Leadership Award, former member of the Queer Youth Task Force and Queer and Trans Youth Council of Santa Cruz County and a leader in his school’s QSA at Delta High. He worked with the Department of Public Health on a gender training for sex educators in the community and sat on panels to speak about his experience as a trans person of color. Jeydon will be attending Cabrillo College as a full time student in the fall of 2021 and his major is Pre-Med. He plans to be an OB/GYN to provide better support to the queer and trans community around reproductive health care.

Sophia Elizalde

2019 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $2,000 scholarship to Sophia Elizalde for her contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Sophia graduated Watsonville High school with a 4.3 GPA and was named Valedictorian. She will be attending Yale University in the Fall where she plans to pursue a career in government and education. “I believe that everyone should have access to a quality education no matter your socioeconomic background,” Sophia says. “I hope to bring what I learn in college back to my community as a sort of educational Robin Hood.”

Isa Moreno

2017 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1,000 scholarship to Isa Moreno for her contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

She graduated Watsonville High School in 2017. Isa was very active in school and community organizations which she now continues at UCLA.

Lucia Umeki-Martinez

2022 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1,500 scholarship to Lucia Umeki-Martinez for their contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Lucía (they/she/he) is a recipient of the 2022 Queer Youth Leadership Awards, the PG&E George Kronenberger Memorial eQuality Scholarship, the 2021-22 ASB Co-President of Watsonville High School, the 2021-22 President of Watsonville High's Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Club, and they are also an intern with the Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County. They worked hard to create more inclusive spaces for LGBTQIA+ students at Watsonville High and the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. As a result of their advocacy, they were able to keep the pride flag raised at Watsonville High as well as create more gender-neutral bathrooms on their campus for gender non-conforming students. They will be attending UC Berkeley full-time in the fall where they hope to study Sociology with the goal of becoming an educator.

Adrian Elizalde

2021 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1,250 scholarship to Adrian Elizalde for his contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Adrian graduated from Watsonville High School in the top 10% of his grade while also being an active member of the Queer community. He was a member of the SAGA club, regularly volunteered for PV Pride events, and is currently an intern for PVUSD Students Deserve. Heading to Yale for his freshman year this August, he hopes to become a creative writer and create more representation for not only Queer people in media, but other underrepresented people as well.

Aryana Flores

2018 Recipient

Pajaro Valley Pride awarded a $1,000 scholarship to Aryana Flores for her contributions to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Ary graduated from Watsonville High School in 2018 and now attends CSUMB. She said that the funds helped relieve the stress of paying for school. “The scholarship paid off the rest of the money I owed for my first semester of college. And it made me very thankful because I was stressing so much - wondering how I was gonna to pay it off.”