Meet the Founder

Alessia Garcia, Founder of Colibri Youth Collective
USC MSW Candidate | PPSC Candidate | Veteran | Youth Advocate | Foster/Adoptive Parent

Colibri Youth Collective was born from a life shaped by survival, service, and a deep belief that young people deserve to be seen before they are in crisis.

Alessia Garcia knows what it feels like to grow up in spaces where your voice does not feel like it belongs. Raised in extreme poverty by a teenage mother after losing her father to gang violence, Alessia spent much of her childhood feeling like she existed in the middle: not always noticed, not always reached, and not always made to feel like her potential mattered. That experience became the foundation for her life’s work.

At 18, Alessia joined the United States Air Force, where she was placed into leadership and told, for the first time in a meaningful way, that she mattered. During her deployment to Afghanistan, she built relationships with children and families living through unimaginable circumstances. She did not have the language for it then, but those moments shaped her understanding of connection, trust, service, and responsibility.

A person with short dark hair smiling, wearing a white shirt, brown vest, and burgundy pants, standing in a room with a beige wall, potted plant, and bookshelf in the background.

After returning home, Alessia began volunteering with youth and never stopped. Over time, her work grew from mentorship and direct service into expanded learning leadership, foster care advocacy, school-based youth development, and social work practice. As a USC MSW student on the school-based social work pathway, Alessia is now building the language, tools, and systems-level perspective to turn lived experience into lasting change. Her work is rooted in a simple truth: young people should not have to reach a breaking point before someone sees them, believes in them, or builds support around them.

Through Colibri Youth Collective, Alessia partners with schools, expanded learning programs, and youth-serving organizations to create spaces where belonging, youth voice, wellness, and leadership are not treated as extras. They are the foundation. Her mission is to help build systems that reach the young people who are too often overlooked, especially those still learning that their voice has value and their story belongs in the room.

Alessia founded CYC for the child she once was, for the youth she now serves, and for every young person still waiting for someone to see what is possible in them.

Why CYC Exists

I created Colibri Youth Collective for the young people who move through school and community spaces quietly wondering if they matter. I know what it feels like to be present, but not fully seen. I know what it feels like to have potential, but not always have the right people, systems, or spaces built around it.

CYC exists because support should not only show up after a young person is struggling. It should be built into the spaces they already belong to. Through belonging, youth voice, wellness, and leadership, CYC helps create the kind of environments where young people are seen early, supported deeply, and reminded that their story has value.

What Shapes the Work

  • Group of ten diverse students standing outdoors, smiling, holding a large colorful thank you poster and a basket of treats, in front of a school building with trees and a light blue sky.

    Expanded Learning & Youth Development

    Non-profit & LEAs

    With more than a decade in afterschool and expanded learning, Alessia has built programs, led teams, mentored youth, and created spaces where students can grow outside the traditional school day. This experience shapes CYC’s belief that some of the most powerful youth development happens in the moments between academics, relationships, identity, and belonging.

  • People attending a lecture or seminar in a classroom, sitting at a long table with notebooks and pens, listening attentively.

    School Social Work & PPSC Pathway

    USC MSW Candidate | Class of Fall 2026

    As a USC MSW Candidate pursuing the PPSC pathway, Alessia’s work is grounded in school-based social work, prevention, whole-child support, and systems thinking. Her training gives language and structure to what she has long believed: young people are shaped not only by personal choices, but by the systems, opportunities, and supports around them.

  • A group of United States Air Force officers in dress uniform standing outdoors, holding rifles, with some wearing white gloves, during a formal ceremony or parade.

    Military Service & Leadership

    U.S. Air Force Security Forces | OEF 2011, Afghanistan

    Alessia’s military service taught her responsibility, discipline, trust, and the power of showing up with purpose. Her deployment to Afghanistan deepened her understanding of connection, community, and what it means to serve across difference, especially alongside children and families navigating difficult conditions.

  • A group of seven people standing in front of a white garage door. They are all smiling and wearing black T-shirts with various messages. The group includes a tall young man with glasses, two women, a teenage boy, and three young girls. The women and girls are wearing accessories and colorful clothing.

    Foster Care Advocacy & Lived Experience

    Foster/Adoptive Parent | Youth Advocate

    As a foster/adoptive parent and youth advocate, Alessia understands the importance of consistency, belonging, and adults who do not give up when young people are still finding their way. Her lived experience and family story continue to shape CYC’s commitment to youth who are often overlooked, underestimated, or unsupported.

The Bridge I’m Building

My experience across nonprofit expanded learning, district-based ELO-P/ASES leadership, and school social work training gives me a unique multidisciplinary lens. I understand the creativity and relationship-centered culture of youth development, as well as the structure, compliance, and systems priorities that districts must navigate. CYC was created to bridge those worlds..

Expanded learning programs often operate in the grey area. They are connected to the school day, but they are not the school day. They serve students on school campuses, but they are also shaped by afterschool culture, youth voice, enrichment, relationships, and community. That space needs support that understands both sides.

CYC is not built from only a clinical social work lens, an educator lens, or a nonprofit program lens. It is shaped by all three. The goal is to help programs build ecosystems where school systems, community partners, staff, and youth are not working around each other, but with each other.

Get Started 
The Work Ahead
A woman with long dark hair and glasses wearing a dark shirt with a leadership badge, raising her hand in a classroom or meeting room with several people seated at tables, a man in a blue shirt and cap standing near the whiteboard, and ceiling lights overhead.

CYC is building a prevention-centered model of youth support that helps schools and communities move beyond reacting to crisis and toward creating spaces where young people are known, connected, and empowered. The goal is not to add one more program to already full systems. The goal is to help youth-serving spaces become more intentional, more human, and more responsive to the young people inside them.

Through youth leadership, wellness-centered programming, staff development, and systems consulting, CYC works to build environments where belonging is practiced, youth voice is protected, and support becomes part of the culture.

A classroom with students working on tablets and reading a book. A girl with glasses and a girl with a beige hoodie are in the foreground, focused on their devices. In the background, there are more students and a decorated bulletin board with colorful stars and motivational words.
A person sitting at a desk writing on a worksheet with a pen. The worksheet includes illustrations of a cloud and a person. There are various candy wrappers and a bag of candy on the desk.

“I founded Colibri Youth Collective for the young people still learning that their voice matters, their story belongs, and their future is worth building around.”

-Alessia Garcia, Founder