Taking a Healthy Ride on the Green Side and Clean Energy Careers are new animations, produced in partnership with two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Lalo Alcaraz and his team at Pocho Villa Productions. These 90-second shorts (together with 30-second PSA versions) focus on green mobility options and benefits, and career paths in the clean energy field. The animations feature the voices of El Monte Union students and administrators who engaged in a focus group with Alcaraz at the project’s outset.

Alcaraz, who is also the creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip “La Cucaracha”, said he wanted to make sure the animations felt relevant to its audience and called on another group of students from El Monte’s Mountain View High School to voice the characters, recording them in the school’s own podcast studio at the invitation of VISTA Academy Coordinator and teacher John Mann.

The project was funded as part of a $9.8 million grant from the California Air Resources Board to promote clean transportation and public education about its benefits.

“As part of this grant, we wanted to start a conversation in our community about clean transportation and clean energy career opportunities for our students,” Luna said. “Lalo and his team gave us the perfect vehicle to introduce ways students and their families can contribute to green mobility, and the benefits going green brings to the whole El Monte community.”