About Rosie Ayala
Candidate Qualifications
Rosie is a career-long education and youth development professional. Parks and recreation services have been flagship components to her work in youth development especially when thinking of the social capital that comes with seeing the variety of engagement opportunities and navigating a parks and recreation system.
Currently, Rosie serves as the Associate Director of Collective Action at Foundation for Tacoma Students where she's able to work with many community-based organizations to center the needs of students and families in aligning towards a Tacoma that serves youth cradle to career. Her biggest accomplishment in the work relates to the passing of SB 5321--the auto-enrollment of the College Bound Scholarship. Rosie worked in concert with community-based organizations, school counselors, advocacy experts, and representatives to impact the lives of an annual estimate of 10,000 families across the state. It's because of success in this strategy and similar work that Rosie firmly believes in the impact of partnerships as a means to work smarter for a better future.
In addition to her professional background, Rosie serves as the Chair of the Tacoma Arts Commission in partnership with City of Tacoma's Office of Arts and Cultural Vitality. There are several sector intersections within this work and Rosie considers it a pleasure to lend her systems thinking background to this and many other involvements.
Rosie attended Seattle University where she earned a Master's degree in Systemic Organizational Leadership & Design. Her undergraduate degree comes from Lewis & Clark College where she studied Sociology and Anthropology.
Vision & Values
The Metro Parks Tacoma umbrella holds so many services beyond park land. It's critically important that all Tacoma residents know of all the opportunities for activation and engagement which include organized sports, facility use, and open space areas.
In order to do this, we need to center
Partnerships: to enhance the breadth of what is accomplished and reduce duplication
Community Voice: to ensure representation and understand impact
Equity: to assess our implicit operational practices
Continuous Improvement: to remain an example of quality service
Taking care of our park spaces and ensuring they've available for the next generation is uppermost as we all consider park activation.
Personal
Rosie is a resident of South Tacoma where she enjoys exploring different parts of the area. Since the pandemic, there have been several outdoor activities that became hobbies including pickleball, disc golf, softball, and paddle boarding. The outdoors have always been a special place for Rosie, but even more so now. She's an avid photographer and in a parallel univers does photography and graphic design. Rosie is a proud paw parent to two rescues, a cat named Freddy and a dog named Pookie.
