Lina
Director of Outreach at the Teton Literacy Center
Lina serves our community as the Director of Outreach at the Teton Literacy Center, serves on three volunteer boards – Womentum, Slow Foods in the Tetons, and Voices JH, and is a photojournalist, taking on a number of projects – including capturing all of the lifestyle photographs of applicants and homeowners in this year’s CHT campaign. Lina moved to Jackson 10 years ago to work for the JH Wildlife Film Festival.
“When I arrived, I got to know two women who worked with me at the JH Wildlife Film Festival. From there, in just a few years, I developed a tight group of friends from all backgrounds, connected with my first language, Spanish and felt truly a part of. You get to know the people who live in your community, and really appreciate how much people want to connect and help each other.”
In Lina’s role at the Teton Literacy Center, she wears many hats. She teaches, supporting many families that are part of the community and handle all of the outreach for the organization. In her spare time, Lina loves connecting with the students and families she’s worked with for the past 7+ years. Lina also gardens, taking pride in growing her own food, and she also enjoys hiking and exploring the outdoors and having access to so much untouched wilderness right outside her door, deriving joy from exploring with her husband and trusty adventure dog, Albondigas (meatball in Spanish).
“Jackson gives me the ease to be alone in nature, with few people around and truly to be able to feel in the wild. I love when we hike for hours and only run into a few people on the trail, or when we drive 15 minutes from our house and feel in complete wilderness.”
Lina and her husband currently rent in town and feel very fortunate to have a home despite their monthly rent cost being over 50% of their income. The industry standard for affordability is no more than 30-35% of total income.
“Even though the expense is a real financial struggle to save and think ahead, we know we are uber fortunate we have a home. Our reality, with the current market, is that we know we will never be able to buy in Jackson without it being affordable housing. Having the chance at an Affordable home would completely change our lives and provide us with a chance to stay and make Jackson work.”
It’s Lina’s sincere hope that our community can survive this dooming crisis, and that Jackson doesn’t stop being a town of locals who always rally to protect and help each other. To supporters of Affordable housing, Lina has this to say:
“Thank you. Thank you for giving our community a chance to stay a community of locals, who live, breath and fight for their community. Thank you for giving us a chance to continue to make Jackson special.”
Lina is currently working on a photo project that takes a deep dive into how the housing crisis in Jackson is affecting the working class, which is scheduled to run at the Teton County Library this Fall.
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