SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Only a sophomore at Silver Creek High School, Danielle Garcia is a part of many extracurriculars after school and has her head straight on starting her very own nonprofit organization. 

Garcia has demonstrated her hard work in a short amount of time. Her aspirations to major in international relations and taking the pre-law track while minoring in business is keeping her busy for the next three years she has in high school. In addition to making herself proud, she wants to please her family as well. 

A project that is keeping Garcia occupied is starting to launch her nonprofit organization called Bridge All Minds by the end of October. Her inspiration for this project was dedicated to her parent’s journey in finding a good education in their small province in the Philippines. Garcia’s parents came from first generation families which made it hard on them to achieve good schooling. 

“It was definitely not easy for my family to be able to achieve the American dream, but through the impoverished circumstances their small province offered them, my parents definitely didn’t want their future family to be repeating that life cycle. So they decided to break that generational life cycle through seeking opportunities through education,” Garcia said.

The hardships her parents faced motivated her to create a change so kids that are going through the same issue have equal opportunities in education. Since her parents took every educational opportunity they had, it helped them start a good life in America. Garcia wants to ensure that young kids that don’t have as much as others have the same opportunities.

In addition to this, Garcia is a member of the una-usa youth affinity group, is serving as a policy debater for the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League and is the competition manager of logistics for the Silver Creek’s Future Business Leaders of America club. With a very large workload at a young age, Garcia finds different ways to escape from the stress and pressure.

She finds comfort in writing her thoughts down in a journal as a way to vent. Very passionate and hardworking people like Garcia can feel burnt out at times too. What cures her the most is going to her mom for advice when feeling this way. She is bestfriends with her mom and finds relief when debriefing with her whenever she needs a motivating talk. 

Garcia says, “I pretty much just reflect on it and tell myself that it’s okay to take breaks and to genuinely breathe because I am human at the end of the day and I don’t want to lose sight of my social life as well as doing things that make me happy.”