Hannia Hernandez-Mendoza: Apple Blossom Festival Royalty Candidate
This is a series of interviews with the Top 10 Candidates for the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival Royal Court. The Apple Blossom Queen and two Princesses will be crowned Feb. 11th at the Cashmere Valley Bank Royalty Selection Pageant at the Numerica Performing Arts Center. Get Tickets here
Meet Top 10 Candidate Hannia Hernandez-Mendoza
Hannia is an office holder with several Eastmont High School clubs; M.e.Ch.a, the Environmental Club and FCCLA. She is president of M.e.Ch.a, an hispanic led club. "We're just really dedicated towards promoting higher education for Hispanic students, you know, getting resources out there, whatever they need".
Hannia says the clubs attendance has grown since the pandemic ended. After three years membership has grown to 70 students. "I'm so honored to be president because you get to meet so many students, and they look up to you having having those positions of powers where you can do a lot to help out" Hannia is secretary of Eastmont's FCCLA or Family, Career and Community Leaders of America and is similar to Future Business Leaders of America. "FCCLA is essentially a club where they have events similar to FBLA as well. FCCLA competes with presentations, maybe doing a speech, portfolio' according to Hernandez-Mendoza.
Hannia has volunteered with YMCA, Wenatchee CAFE and a favorite volunteer experience came while serving others at Lighthouse Ministries while ssssshe was working a shift in their soup kitchen operation.
"I was helping out cook cheeseburgers for the people that were coming down to the food pantry in the basement. I met a woman who told me how proud she was of me that I was doing this (volunteering) and that she would love to see more teenagers helping". Hannia said the woman told her life was a constant struggle and began to cry and she fought back her own tears. "It was just so sad to see because you hate see that type of pain in your community. And you would just want to take it all away from them. But it was just really encouraging to see her motivated towards what I'm doing. And it was just really amazing. It was a life changing experience for me".
Hannia is interested in civil engineering and wants to enter WSU majoring in civil engineering. She says she's interested in the field because she sees it as an extension of her volunteer work. "I want to help out I want to do things that make a change here in Wenatchee or Washington State. I want to help build out infrastructures, roads, buildings, bridges, things like that. I really hope that it takes me somewhere that I can help people benefit from what I'm doing". Perhaps one day, Hernandez-Mendoza can be working on planning issues for East Wenatchee.
In her spare time, Hannia likes to explore some of the paths off the Apple Capital Loop Trail to see where they lead. "I just love it out there. You can see where people have been where they hang out. It's unfortunate because you can see waste. And that's where I love to see a cleanup project happen.
Hannia says Mark Zuckerberg is the person she would most like to trade places with for one day. What would she do? "Well, it's simply because he has a net worth of $56 billion dollars. I would just love to have access to that type of money just so I could help people in difficult situations. Maybe they were homeless for a little bit, just anything that I could do to help those types of people and those organizations and people struggling".
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