Lizeth Torres
Office Manager/Finance Assistant
ltorres@youthalive.org | (510) 594-2588 (300)
Here at Youth ALIVE!, Office Manager Lizeth Torres is always on the move! He
r job is to unburden our field staff by providing administrative support & making sure they have what they need so they can focus on violence prevention, intervention, and healing. Liz is proud to call Oakland her home. She says “I’m from Oakland but I was born in Mexico. I have the best of both worlds. I’m extremely proud of who I am.” Her family came to Oakland when she was a little girl. She remembers comparing the rough streets of Juarez, the border town where she was born, to her new home. “Juarez was a tough place. That means you had to develop practical common sense & awareness of your surroundings—that makes you street smart & very resilient. Oakland was also tough but at least we knew how to navigate it.” In Oakland, Liz raised two children, including a recent graduate of UC Santa Cruz & a soon-to-be teenage son. When she listens to the stories told by the different programs, she says she thinks of her two children, especially of her son; Oakland can be a very wonderful place and at the same time it can also be dangerously unpredictable—especially for a young man of color. Her kids and the work of Youth ALIVE!’s field staff inspire her. “I see their passion,” says Liz, “and I want to equal that, to be positive at the office, because I know how difficult their job can be.” So she tries to create a feeling of community and shared purpose at the office. “They’re serving my people, Oakland people,” says Liz, “and that’s why I have to reflect the same goals in my work.”