New Hires: Welcome Ashley and Jalina to the Team

Tell us about yourself.

Jalina: My name’s Jalina and I’ve actually been at Community Boost for about a year now. I started back last March before everything closed. I am originally from Hawaii and North Carolina, I kind of bounced back and forth between both, and I moved to San Diego for college. I went to Point Loma and I’ve been living here ever since.

Ashley: I’m Ashley. I’ve been with Community Boost for about nine months now. I’m originally from Connecticut. I lived in Connecticut my whole life and went to school out there. And then once I started working at Community Boost, I headed over to San Diego. 

Why did you choose Community Boost?

Jalina: I was job hunting and I didn’t really have any experience in marketing, but I was interested in learning more about it. My mom has always worked with nonprofits my whole time growing up, so I’ve always been around that and I’m really passionate about social impact causes. So when I found Community Boost and I had seen that they were a marketing agency that works just with nonprofit organizations, I thought that was really awesome. And after interviewing, I just really liked everyone on the team so I knew it was a good fit for me.

Ashley: I first found Community Boost because I was looking for jobs in the nonprofit realm. A lot of my background is with nonprofits and my background is in marketing. So when I found Community Boost, it was just kind of like a perfect fit for me, finding the company was just kind of like a sweet spot of all of my different passions.

What is one thing you’re passionate about?

Jalina: I am most passionate about human rights and especially in third-world countries. My mom lives in Africa now, she moved to Africa a few years ago, and so those are just the nonprofits that she’s always been working with. Those are the ones that I’m most familiar with and have always been around or been experienced with. In high school, I worked a lot with organizations that were fighting AIDS in third-world countries and things like that so that’s what I’m most passionate about.

Ashley: And for me, I’m really passionate about racial justice and a lot of racial justice organizations. Being a woman of color, that’s something that I’ve always been really passionate about and wanting to make a difference in so I’m really excited to be working with Community Boost with organizations that really follow my passion.

What have you learned so far at Community Boost?

Ashley: Teamwork really just makes the dream work. I think that we don’t always know all the answers all the time and I can really rely on my teammates to fill in the gaps where I need them to. I always feel comfortable with everyone on my team and we just make everything work together.

Jalina: I’ve learned a lot. I knew nothing about the marketing world before starting here. So pretty much everything that I do now is learned obviously. I’ve learned a ton about marketing and I learned a ton about different social causes that I had never heard of before. And just all of these new, well, not new, just new to me, organizations that are doing so many amazing things in the world.

What is your favorite core value of Community Boost?

Jalina: I have two. My first favorite is “We Celebrate Life” because I love the community at Community Boost and I love how everyone is always excited to talk about the weekends and fun plans and do awesome things together. And we just have a really great culture and you can really tell that everyone here truly does celebrate life. And then “Committed to Excellence” is my other favorite because everyone works super hard, but it’s never like falling hard on your shoulders when you fail. We’re committed to excellence and that drive is there. We’re always just trying our best.

Ashley: I think my favorite core value is that we are “Relentless Learners.” Digital marketing is always a space that’s changing and evolving every single second so it’s cool to be on a team where everyone’s interested in learning what the newest of the new initiatives in digital marketing are.

What’s your favorite part about working at Community Boost?

Jalina: My favorite part is the people. I really love all my coworkers and I think there’s a really great culture. Even just during the workday, you can talk to anyone, bounce ideas off of each other, and it’s really just a community working together. And I really liked that.

Ashley: I will also say the culture is my favorite part. I started at Community Boost completely virtually, and I’ve fostered a lot of friendships from it, even though, you know, I’ve met most of the team only via Zoom. So it’s been really cool to have this culture follow through, even just virtually.

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Ashley: I would say breakfast burritos. Yeah, that is a good one.

Jalina: I would probably say, I mean, I would say Thai food if it was a food, but for just one thing, maybe, I would also say breakfast burritos. Ones with hash Browns in them.

Ashley: Oh yeah. Hash browns. Like potato bacon, egg, and cheese in a freshly made tortilla.

What is one thing that people might not know about you?

Jalina: People know this now because I already said it, but my mom lives in Africa. I also have a twin sister.

Ashley: My family’s dog is the niece of Lil NAS X’s dog. So yeah, we’re related.

What is one place you would love to travel to?

Jalina: My mom and my family are from Thailand and I really want to be able to go visit there and see it as an adult. I went when I was like a little baby but didn’t get to experience it so I’d really love to go to Thailand.

Ashley: I would like to go to Greece. I just think it’s so beautiful. I love the beach and the food, and I have a lot of family friends that are from Greece so I would love to travel there.

Bone-in wings or boneless wings?

Jalina: Bone-in wings.

Ashley: Bone-in wings too. Yeah.

Jalina: Boneless wings are not wings. Boneless wings are chicken nuggets. If I’m sitting down and ordering wings, it’s going to be bone-in because, for boneless wings, they’re not real, like there’s no such thing. They’re fake meat, they’re more chicken tenders or chicken nuggets.

Ashley: If I wanted chicken tenders, then I would order chicken tenders. Yes. If I’m ordering wings, I’m going to order wings with the wing in.

James Hall