Maya Salsedo, a 2012 Brower Youth Award winner, champions food justice, driven by her family's history of food insecurity. Descendants of Puerto Rican emigrants who worked in Hawaiian sugar cane

Maya Salsedo, a 2012 Brower Youth Award winner, champions food justice, driven by her family's history of food insecurity. Descendants of Puerto Rican emigrants who worked in Hawaiian sugar cane fields, her family consistently faced challenges accessing healthy food.

This experience spurred Salsedo to action. In 2011, as a youth organizer with Rooted in Community, she proposed the Youth Food Bill of Rights. This declaration envisions a food system that benefits consumers, producers, and the planet, granting local communities more control over their food. Her work has since inspired peers nationwide, establishing a foundation for dialogues on what food justice means to today's youth.