Kern County Times

From a young age, California State University, Bakersfield student Marcos Garibaldo has believed in the importance of public service.

While attending Golden Valley High School, he was part of the school’s Interact club and participated in several volunteer community projects. After graduating high school in 2017, Garibaldo took his desire to make a difference to the next level.

At age 18, he joined the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps program under Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Corps. Over a 10-month period, Garibaldo assisted in cleanup efforts following major natural disasters, including Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, and Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“I want to provide public service and just show my gratitude to the community by giving back,” he said.

After Garibaldo’s time in the program ended in 2018, he wasn’t sure at first what he wanted to do. He eventually decided to pursue college. Four years later, he’s now preparing to graduate from CSUB this month with a bachelor’s degree in public administration and is the first in his family to earn a university degree.

“It feels very gratifying and liberating at the same time. CSUB has been a great place for me,” he said. “I’m grateful for my family and my professors. Because of their feedback and support, I was able to make it all four years here at CSUB.”

One of those professors is Dr. Thomas Martinez, who is also director of the university’s Master of Public Administration program.

“Though quiet and humble in demeanor, through Marcos’ written assignments in my public policy and administration course, I quickly learned he is bright, writes well, has strong analytical skills, is thoughtful and displays a serious commitment to public service. He is a model of excellence at CSUB,” he said.

Garibaldo received several scholarships that helped him earn his degree, including from the Kern County Community Foundation and the Robert M. Odell Scholarship in Public Administration.

“I am incredibly grateful for the scholarships I received throughout my time at CSUB. They allowed me to focus solely on my studies,” he said.

'A needle in a field of haystacks'

Garibaldo wasn’t quite ready to pursue college immediately after graduating from high school. Upon joining AmeriCorps, he spent a few weeks doing training in Baltimore, Maryland, before being sent out to respond to hurricanes Harvey and Maria.

Garibaldo was part of a team of other young volunteers who helped remove debris, rebuild homes, deliver food and went door-to-door to notify residents of disaster aid they could receive from FEMA.

During his time in the program, he also helped collect paperwork, sort through documents and helped people apply for financial assistance.

Upon joining the program, Garibaldo said he felt very nervous about leaving his home for the first time and wasn’t entirely sure whether he would be up to the task.

“From my outlook, I was just an 18-year-old with no real experience providing community service care at this level,” he said. “Eventually, I was able to get in the groove. I had a very supportive team that were able to lift me up and feel welcome.”

Getting an up-close look at the devastating effects of natural disasters was an overwhelming experience for Garibaldo.

“With Hurricane Harvey, the scale of damage that was done to Houston was unbelievable. It felt like you were a needle in a field of haystacks,” he said. “Hurricane Maria was similar, but more like a mountain of haystacks. The wildlife and infrastructure were decimated. There was no electricity, everything was pitch back. It was dead silence wherever you went.”

While Garibaldo joined AmeriCorps out of his desire to make a difference, he wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer amount of work and effort that was needed to help places that were damaged by the hurricanes to fully recover.

“When you come in, you think you’re going to be a tremendous help, but then you realize the enormity of it. Even if I spent 1,000 hours helping an area, the best I could do was help people within maybe 10 or 20 miles,” he said. “However, I was still able to get back into mindset of ‘I have to focus on what I’m able to do and leave it up to everyone else to do their part in order to help improve the situation as best we could.’”

After completing the program, Garibaldo sought to apply what he learned to his studies at CSUB. He took an emergency management course and ultimately decided to seek a degree in public administration.

“I wanted to focus on courses that could help better explain the situations that I found myself in during the program,” he said. “I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on. I was just doing grunt work in a sense. I wanted to get a better understanding of emergency response.”

After graduating, Garibaldo is looking to work full-time with FEMA and has already applied for a position as a reservist, who are on call to respond to disasters. His ultimate career goal, however, is to work for a city or county in the public works department.

“I love learning about how government works and how things are planned out,” he said. “I love the idea of helping a community grow, to help it develop and make the lives of everyone better than they were yesterday.”

Original source can be found here.