Valeria Fuentes
Maryland Institute College of Art
Valeria Fuentes a senior undergraduate student at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Upon graduation Valeria intends to move immediately into MICA's graduate Social Design program. Since her arrival at MICA Valeria has been committed to creative projects with strong social content. This includes working both within and external to the MICA campus on projects based in community engagement, racial inequity, and urban design. Valeria is currently working on the Kinetic Kitchen program which she founded and runs. Kinetic Kitchen combines community organization, social capacity building, and civic empowerment to provide an educational cooking program for Baltimore City Public School students that focuses on healthy eating and nutrition. Valeria partners Kinetic Kitchen with another Baltimore institution, Hungry Harvest, to demonstrate ways to make low cost, healthy meals for local families.
Personal Statement
Valeria Fuentes, a senior Architectural Design student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, is both a student leader and a community leader in Baltimore City. She is passionate about addressing social justice issues within the city; in particular she is focused on food justice and racial inequities in the city. For the past year she has been running her own after school program called Kinetic Kitchen that works with local non-profits, community organizations, and Baltimore City schools to provide low cost and healthy cooking programs for youth and adults. She is also on the Resident Food Equity Advisory Committee that is run through the Baltimore City office of Sustainability and Planning which helps her provide youth perspective and feedback to the city on their current food policy initiatives. She believes that food education is essential in addressing the root causes of food inequities.
