ACTion Hero: Michelle O'Campo

Michelle O'Campo is a rare but celebrated breed in ACT: a second-generation leader.  The daughter of former executive board member Dorcas O'Campo, Michelle has recently returned to ACT to guide us in our efforts to become a stronger youth-adult partnership organization.  Michelle may only be 20 years old, but she has more years under her belt as a veteran ACT leader than any of its staff!  She was a dedicated and valuable leader in ACT's late-90's push to reduce Sacramento bus fares.  At the age of 13, she organized tirelessly with other youth to lower fares in general, and to further reduce fares for students on free or reduced lunch.  After months of persistent action, including organizing a thirty-day-in-a-row Sacramento Bee editorial campaign, they won an important victory for struggling area families who had been forced to cut deeply into their weekly food budget in order to pay for their students to travel to school.  They were able to reduce the price of a monthly student bus pass from $30 per month to $15.  To this day, students who receive free or reduced lunch receive a substantial discount from Regional Transit.  For a struggling family with several children, this represented a huge relief to the family budget.

More recently, Michelle has been working with the ACT Meadowview Partnership to bring systemic change to the at-risk community in which she has lived her whole life.  She served as an ACT youth organizer for much of 2006 and she sat on the hiring board for ACT's current staff of young organizers.  She has been organizing with ACT around our recent efforts to bring in new strategies and new dedicated sources of funding to reduce violence perpetrated against youth in our city.

Michelle also joined ACT's PICO National committee and traveled to Washington, D.C. in March to voice Sacramento's youth violence concerns on Capitol Hill.  She had never traveled on a plane, much less outside of California, before this trip.  For her, it was an experience never to forget.  "To see so many people striving for the same causes made me want to get involved even more," she explains.  "Seeing such a diverse group of people, young and some more senior, trying to change how people live in our nation really makes you realize that one person with one issue can ultimately change the lives of so many."

When asked about what ACT has meant to her, and what it means for her today, she leaves us with some inspiring words: "Over the years I have come to realize that what ACT taught me so long ago I use in my daily life and has helped me in so many other areas in my life-from getting my first job which was actually for ACT many years ago to my current job as the Human Resources Assistant for The Paradies Shops.  I never thought that 1-1 training would ever be so useful.  My activeness for ACT has increased and decreased over the years but every time I do come back it makes me remember why I do.  It's like coming home and I am glad to be home."