6 days Ago
APTOS — When the Sentinel contacted Gina Castañeda requesting a follow up interview for its annual hero award series, she knew something was up but stopped short of making predictions. “I told my husband, ‘I don’t know, it’s like they’re going to break my heart or (say) hey, guess what?'” she said with a beaming smile from her office in Watsonville, already sensing the news that was coming. Castañeda was relieved to learn that the answer was “guess what” after all, with the “what” being that she had been named this year’s Jessica A.
York Hero Award winner. “I’m just honored and feel like, OK, I need to keep working and moving forward,” said Castañeda. In the weeks leading up to the announcement, Castañeda was profiled in a series of features highlighting this year’s finalists including Rose Kuras , Lois Rae Guin , Joyce Anderson and Lynn Sestak .
The award shines a light on community members who, despite the obstacles life sometimes puts up, have continued to make selfless and heroic contributions to the Santa Cruz County community — attributes embodied by the award’s namesake, longtime Sentinel reporter Jessica York who died in January after a prolonged battle with cancer. Even before Castañeda, 50, was featured as a finalist for this year’s award, her life story and work in the community was well known. At a TEDxSantaCruz event in 2011, she recounted in excruciating detail her childhood of poverty and gang violence while growing up in South Santa Cruz County.
That same year, Castañeda and the Aztecas Youth Soccer Academy program she founded in 2008 for at-risk local youth were featured in the ESPN documentary “The Save.” Yet she was surprised when she began receiving messages in recent weeks from friends and colleagues sharing that they had learned something new and inspiring about her through the award series . “It’s been overwhelming the people that have reached out to me from all areas,” said Castañeda.
“It’s been super touching for me to get all this feedback from the community.” Castañeda and her siblings grew up in and around Watsonville with little money, food or at times, a roof over their heads. Her mother, a survivor of domestic violence, struggled with addiction issues that led to periods of homelessness for the family.
At one point around middle school age that Castañeda described as among the lowest in her life, she recalled searching for food scraps in a dumpster outside of a local pancake house. But by a stroke of luck amid a minefield of hardship, Castañeda discovered she had a talent for soccer and fostered it through the years until she became a standout at Aptos High School. “Soccer saved my life,” Castañeda reflected.
“How can I save other kids’ lives, through the sport?” While a serious knee injury prevented her from pursuing her dreams beyond young adulthood, Castañeda’s passion for the sport guided her to a path — and career — of giving back to local youth, especially those from the same neighborhoods she grew up in. “It’s not just about winning. You’re going to lose sometimes in life,” said Castañeda.
“When you lose, how do you pick yourself up?” Now in its 17th year, Castañeda has been sharing these lessons with local youth in the Aztecas soccer program, which is home to about 45 current enrollees and hundreds of alumni. The program, supported and managed by the county Probation Department, works with local youth and probationers, many of whom were involved in or are at-risk of being involved in gang activities. Participants in the program sometimes find themselves on a team with former rival gang members or assisting on a goal kicked into the net by a local police officer.
“(Castañeda’s) resilience and her ability to not only be personally resilient, but to turn that around and to give back — I just have the deepest admiration,” said Mary Gaukel Forster, who nominated Castañeda for the award and was last year’s recipient. “When we serve our youth, as Gina is doing, it reverberates through the whole community.” Gaukel Forster admitted that when she found out Castañeda had won, she let out a loud “wahoo!” that startled her husband.
But, she added, all the nominees are worthy of recognition and admiration for what they have done for the community. “We all need heroes, and we all need to be inspired,” she said. “Often those stories aren’t told and, more than ever, we need heroes.
” In addition to her work with the Aztecas, Castañeda is also the soccer coach at Aptos High School, a U.S. National B soccer licensed coach and California state commissioner for Cal North Soccer, a feeder program for youth national teams.
She is on the board for the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, is a founding member of the Pajaro Valley Sports Foundation and is also part of the Rise Together coalition. Her work with local youth also led Castañeda to a career in the county’s juvenile probation department where she has worked for almost 20 years and is now a supervisor. But county agencies aren’t the only ones who have noticed Castañeda’s leadership proclivities.
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice recruited Castañeda to travel to seven countries in Latin America to share her programming methodologies with local leaders who could then establish programs similar to the Aztecas academy.
“A great leader builds other leaders that will one day take their place,” said Castañeda. “To continue the work.” And while this latest recognition — along with many others over the years — has felt good, Castañeda sees herself as someone that worked hard to build a positive life for herself while being provided with a few key opportunities to flourish from other leaders around her.
“There are many people like me in the community,” she said. “I do believe that. How do leaders see them and help them? How do they guide them and give them the tools to do what I’m doing?”.
