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Meet our 2020 Changemakers
Meet our Changemakers: The City of Tempe's annual YouthFest Changemaker Award celebrates students who are committed to a cause, dedicating themselves to make the world a better place. Whether it's on their school campus or in our community, when they see a problem, they take meaningful action to create positive change.
Desert Vista 2020 Changemakers:
Stefano Contreras - Stefano is a Co-Peer Tutoring Coordinator for our Academic Support Program. His leadership and passion in recruiting tutors and scheduling these tutors has provided numerous opportunities for our struggling students to be academically successful. Because of his work, we have seen great success with our struggling Freshmen.
Josephine Deignan - Joey's leadership is a catalyst of change at Desert Vista. Joey's passion and dedication to support social change and understanding has had an everlasting positive impact on Desert Vista. As a leader on our in the Young Dems Club, Vice President of Student Council, and coordinator of the "Welcome to America Project", Joey's friendly and genuine personality promotes the values that make her a leader.
Madelyn Gale - Madelyn is a Co-President of Thunder Buddies/Tukee Buddies. Thunder Buddies is our club that promotes opportunities for our students to work with other students with special needs. She will be coordinating to end the "R" campaign this school year. She also came up with the idea to change the name of our club to Tukee Buddies to include the Pride Buddies of Mountain Pointe High School. She is passionate about giving our special needs students opportunities in the community, on campus and in life.
Zoe Gale - Zoe is a Co-President of Thunder Buddies/Tukee Buddies. Zoe's comment, "Thunder Buddies has brought me so much enjoyment and made me realize how my actions have had on our students with special needs and how I plan on continuing helping this population in my career outside of high school and college", illustrates her love and compassion for the work she does with our Thunder Buddies.
James Rooney - James moved to America in November of 2016 from Ireland. From the start, he wanted to share his culture by teaching Irish Language to others. This experience helped define his purpose of promoting and encouraging cultural perspective. He is the President of the Diversity Club at DV where he has been involved in "Welcome to America Project", "No Place for Hate, "Social Justice Symposium", and "The Peace Summit for Middle Schoolers".