{"id":4651,"date":"2021-09-30T18:26:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T01:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2021-09-30T18:26:38","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T01:26:38","slug":"palomar-made-it-possible-to-give-back-to-my-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/palomar-made-it-possible-to-give-back-to-my-community\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Palomar Made It Possible to Give Back to My Community\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Yates has no plans to leave Valley Center, where she grew up\u2014and where her family\u2019s house burned in 2003. Now she\u2019s set to graduate with a degree in business.<\/p>\n

SAN MARCOS \u2014 Born and raised in Valley Center, Amanda Yates came to Palomar College in 2019 as a Business major and cheerleader with hopes of staying close to her family\u2019s roots in rural North County.<\/p>\n

She took advantage of the Palomar Promise<\/a>, which offers up to two years of free tuition, textbooks and other support to first-time college students.<\/p>\n

Now she is poised to graduate in May 2022. Yates, 20, recently reflected on her time at Palomar and a lifetime of experiences in the region that led to her decision to study business.<\/p>\n

In 2003, when she was a little girl, her family\u2019s home near Valley Center High School burned in the Paradise Fire. In the process of recovering and rebuilding, her parents, Kevin and Wendy Yates, launched a nonprofit called Nurtured by Nature<\/a>\u2014now a well-known \u201c\u200b\u200bswim-with-the-otters\u201d program\u2014and a family business, Animal Educators. Kevin Yates was a zookeeper at the San Diego Safari Park for 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were taken aback by how the community took care of us, providing us with clothes, food\u2014whatever we needed,\u201d Amanda recalled. \u201cMy parents really wanted to give back. That\u2019s how Nurture by Nature started. We provide exotic animal interactions\u2014what we\u2019re popular for is otter swims with Make A Wish kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six years ago, in keeping with the theme, the Yates family purchased a piece of property in Pauma Valley and turned it into an event venue called Otter Valley.<\/p>\n

When it was time to enroll in her first classes at Palomar, Yates knew she wanted to stay in the area and contribute, but wasn\u2019t sure what to study.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d pursue something that\u2019s broad and useful,\u201d she said, \u201cand I decided I\u2019m going to continue with my family\u2019s business and focus on the event-planning side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On staying in Valley Center, she said: \u201cI know there are a lot of people who want to get out of the small town and explore. I get it\u2014I love traveling and exploring, but I always love to come home to Valley Center. I can\u2019t imagine being anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Palomar Comets cheerleader, Yates said she has had access to first-rate athletic counseling, as well as a supportive community on campus: \u201cYou\u2019re new, you\u2019re nervous, you don\u2019t know anyone\u2014but my cheer team, on the first day, some of the older girls were like, \u2018Do you need help finding your classes and your textbooks?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that she is excited to get back to cheering: \u201cWe\u2019re finally back on the sidelines cheering for our football team, and eventually basketball and other sports. It\u2019s really nice to be back on the field, doing what we love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yates has also participated in the Miss Valley Center pageant, and spent one year as Junior Miss Valley Center. She said she plans to participate in the pageant again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amanda Yates has no plans to leave Valley Center, where she grew up\u2014and where her family\u2019s house burned in 2003. Now she\u2019s set to graduate with a degree in business. SAN MARCOS \u2014 Born and raised in Valley Center, Amanda Yates came to Palomar College in 2019 as a Business major and cheerleader with hopes… \u00a0Continue Reading: \u2018Palomar Made It Possible to Give Back to My Community\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10413,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,23,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carousel","category-features","category-home","category-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Palomar Made It Possible to Give Back to My Community\u2019 - Palomar News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/palomar-made-it-possible-to-give-back-to-my-community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Palomar Made It Possible to Give Back to My Community\u2019 - Palomar News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amanda Yates has no plans to leave Valley Center, where she grew up\u2014and where her family\u2019s house burned in 2003. 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