Rebekah Turnbaugh is a California girl, born in Hayward and raised in Modesto. As an infant, she required a surgery to correct a birth defect in her spine and was paralyzed as a result. Although this impacted many areas of Rebekah’s life, academics was not one of them.
Rebekah has had quite a varied educational experience. Although she started in the public school system as a child, she was homeschooled from 8th grade through high school. Like many students, she felt unsure of what she wanted to study in college, but she never questioned that her next step would be higher learning. She started attending Modesto Junior College (MJC) and clearly remembers the feeling of already being behind when registering for classes for the first semester.
After her first year at MJC, Rebekah got a job at a regional nonprofit called the Great Valley Center. It was there, being exposed to a diversity of people and issues, that Rebekah developed a deeper sense of building a career focused on serving marginalized communities as she learned from colleagues who were working to address the social, economic, and environmental concerns of a region often overlooked in California.
While working at the Great Valley Center, Rebekah attended MJC part-time. Ultimately it took five years before she was ready to transfer to CSU Stanislaus, where it was another five years before she graduated with her BA in Sociology.
About six years after completing her bachelor’s degree, Rebekah felt the itch to go back to school to earn a graduate degree. She experienced her first snowy winters during two years in Chicago at Loyola University working on an MA in Social Justice in their Institute of Pastoral Studies.
Throughout this history, The Campaign for College Opportunity has been present. As Rebekah finished her degree at CSU Stanislaus, she worked part-time as a program associate for The Campaign in a small office in Modesto. She left to be able to study abroad in Querétaro, Mexico as a part of the CSU exchange program. Upon returning from Mexico, Rebekah also returned to The Campaign for College Opportunity as a policy associate in the fledgling Sacramento office.
Rebekah now finds herself back at The Campaign for College Opportunity after eight years working in direct service, excited to be returning to an organization dedicated to being a courageous voice for equity in education.