Christian Balderas, Action News 8
As part of the first day of the Watsonville Film Festival, actor and honoree for the evening, Pepe Serna, made it a top priority to visit students in the Pajaro Unified School District.
"I want to jump start every young mind's heart to say, 'I can do it, I have a right to do it,'" Serna said.
From Thursday to Friday, Serna visited six schools in the district.
“At first I didn’t know who he was, and then searching him up knowing what he looks like and what kind of movies he's in I was like holy moly, like I've seen this guy in so many other movies,” Pajaro Valley High School student Cassandra Hernandez said.
The visit was made possible by the festival’s partnership with the district and the Youth Cinema Project, a nonprofit program by the Latino Film Institute.
Students in the program are tasked with creating a film and premiering it at the end of the year.
The program has been in PVUSD schools for 6 years and was ushered in by Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez.
“Stanford University did a whole study regarding this and found that students are not only performing better in things like language arts and articulation, speaking ability but also mathematics,” Rodriguez said.