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Rosa Rivera (center) with Fred Neely (left) and Cyndi Farrington (right)

As a student employee of the Forty-Niner Shops, there are numerous other benefits than “just a paycheck.” The convenience of location is paramount for some, whereas availabilities are affected by having a job off campus to account for travel time and parking. For others, this is their first job, and what better place to acquire job skills and learn about balancing a job and life than where they’re already coming to learn.

In addition to an immensely convenient job location and the development of professional skills, the Shops offer scholarships that are only available to student employees. Competing for a scholarship offered by the university pits you against 35,000 students, but for the Shops Student Employee Scholarship program, the applicant pool is significantly reduced as there are approximately 600 students working in any of the nearly 30 units around campus and Belmont Shore.

Over $9,000 in scholarships were awarded this fall, including the first ever Fred Neely Scholarship (learn more about Fred here). Congratulations to all of the 2012 scholarship winners and thank you for all of your contributions to the Forty-Niner Shops!

Rosa Rivera, Fred Neely Scholarship recipient—Warehouse

Lizeth Mojarro—Pete’s Fresco Grille

Emily Purdy—UDP Starbucks

Briana Alcaraz—Textbook Office

Kelie Lam—Parkside Dining Hall

Alissa Baldon—Beach Walk Café

Nicole Wilson—Beachside Dining Hall

Noah Resto—Beachside Dining Hall

Kristina Vergara—Frontline

Yibin “Bing” Zhang—Communications

Alejandra Hernandez—Frontline/Corporate Receptionist

Jamie Ortiz—Communications

Korinne Silas—Campus Copy Center

Congratulations, Kristin, 2nd Street team, and the 49er Shops for five years in the wonderful Belmont Shore community!

Want pictures and videos?

• Facebook page

• Guest remarks

• Celebratory ribbon cutting by President Alexander

When asking CSULB students if they’ve heard of the Forty-Niner Shops, they usually respond with “the bookstore,” and although the Bookstore Services division is a major branch of the Shops, there’s a little more to them. When you think of Coca-Cola, your first thoughts are probably soda, the iconic silhouette of the glass bottle, and maybe polar bears. In similar fashion, the Coca-Cola Company is much more than “just soda.”

In early November, employees were given the opportunity to learn a little more about one of the Shops’ corporate partners when they were invited to visit the bottling facility in Downey, California and hear about sustainability efforts foreign and domestic. Full-time, part-time, and student employees from Bookstore, Dining, and Corporate departments, along with their guests, were treated to an inside look of this major bottling and distribution facility.

“It surprised me to hear about Coca-Cola’s efforts in being a more sustainable company. The bio-diesel transport trucks, the recycling of their water using reverse osmosis, and their water restoration projects around the nation. I can’t believe people don’t know about their contribution to the protection of our environment.” -Sandy Rivera, Frontline Student Assistant Everyone in attendance (of course, while enjoying Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Dasani water) was pleasantly surprised to learn about international efforts in water replenishment, environmental protection, and the pursuit of zero-waste facilities. Zero-waste execution refers to the amount of waste that makes to a landfill. This would mean that all materials are recycled, composted, or reclaimed for further use within the facility that produced/used it.

Jamie Ortiz, Communications—Graphics Student Supervisor, said, “Coke is one of the Shops’ biggest partners. Hearing about their sustainability practices is comforting, because they play such a huge part here on campus and around the world.” Although this presentation and tour was via special invitation, if you have the opportunity to take one, you should. Rivera continued, “We all agreed that it felt as though we were in Coke’s own version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The bonus was drinking the various Coke products throughout the entire tour.”

For this group of employees, Coca-Cola is now more than just a soda, but the partnership doesn’t stop there. Just before the start of the school year, CSULB was awarded a $500,000 grant for the First Generation Scholarship Program. This means that 25 CSULB students will be awarded four-year scholarships, courtesy of the Coca-Cola Foundation.

So if you grab a soda from the Beach Hut, Outpost, or even the Pyramid or Blair Field, remember our partners at the Coca-Cola Company and know they’ve teamed up with the Forty-Niner Shops to make that path to the diploma a little more refreshing.

For many college graduates, working a part-time job through college was simply the way it had to be. The Forty-Niner Shops, Inc. at Cal State University, Long Beach, reinforces its mission to promote student success by employing hundreds of students throughout the academic year. Each fall, thousands start a brand new journey, and many envision themselves walking across that commencement stage a few years later. Tristy Hillestad began her journey at CSULB this past August, and she has a vision as well, but it isn’t of her getting a diploma, it’s about the thousands of students around her getting theirs. As the new Director of Bookstore Services, Ms. Hillestad joins the management team at the Forty-Niner Shops, a non-profit auxiliary of CSULB focusing on bookstore and dining services.

With over 25 years of experience in retail and higher education, Tristy Hillestad comes to The Beach from the University of Denver (DU), where she entered the unique industry of college retail as a buyer and quickly ascended the professional ladder to Bookstore Division Director in 1998. In this role, she was responsible for the University Bookstore, an off-campus satellite store, a spirit shop in the athletic facility, the Quick Copy Center, and University Mail Services. In January of this year she left the Bookstore Division and moved into the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics as the Director of Budget and Planning until she joined the Shops. Before her transition into college retail, she had already been working in retail as a manager and buyer at department stores and specialty stores. An affinity for customer service and the retail industry developed early in her professional career, and so she chose to pursue it academically, graduating with a Bachelor’s in Textiles with an emphasis in Retail from South Dakota State University.

As a Bookstore Services Director, the responsibilities reach much further than textbook aisles and a bookstore’s walls. Tristy is a co-author of “Northlake Bookstore Case: Benchmarking for Performance Evaluation,” which was published in the IMA Educational Case Journal, and “Southlake Bookstore Case: Balanced Scorecard Assessments” and “Westlake Bookstore Case: Outsourcing,” which both appeared in separate volumes of the Journal of Accounting Case Research. She has held leadership positions in the Rocky Mountain Skyline Bookstore Association, contributed as a guest presenter with CAMEX (Campus Market Expo), been a guest professor and lecturer at the Daniels College of Business (DU), and has stayed actively involved with the National Association of College Stores (NACS).

These highlights are merely a summary of the professional contributions that Tristy Hillestad brings to the Forty-Niner Shops, so it is safe to say that there is a great excitement in her joining the team. Her vision does include one more diploma, though—from her son Ryan who is currently a sophomore, pursuing a degree in Criminology at the University of Denver. Her other son, Justin, recently graduated from the Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism program at DU’s Daniels College of Business. Both look forward to visiting southern California! Congratulations on your new position as Director of Bookstore Services with the Forty-Niner Shops and welcome to The Beach, Tristy!

LA Film festival and SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques) Conference

Why do you volunteer?

First is for personal interest. Second, the passes of those kind of Festival or conference is normally very pricy for students. So being a volunteer I can be part of it without paying a huge check. And I get to be around like-minded people and learn from them.

How it has changed/impacted your life?

I have met some other young people who shared the same interests or had the same career goal. I also got chance to meet some top notch people and had a better understanding of the in the industry.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

Both LA film festival and SIGGRAPH are very volunteer-driven. They welcome motivated and enthusiastic people who enjoy helping others, working with exceptional and supportive colleagues, and contributing to the vitality and ongoing development of the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques.

I volunteer at my church at St. Barnabas Catholic Church. I teach 2nd Grade Sunday School and am also involved in the Youth Ministry. We have a club called “Club Sandwich” where we meet up and make a whole bunch of sandwiches and we take them down to the Samaritan House Shelter here in Long Beach and as well as going down to Central City East in Downtown Los Angeles to feed the homeless. During Thanksgiving and the Holidays, we do canned food drives, a toiletries drive, and from this we make assorted boxes of canned foods and sock kits with toiletries for the homeless.

Why do you volunteer?

I volunteer because I believe that it is a great deed. It is very fulfilling to be able to help people and families who are in need. Seeing these people and families who barely have anything is sad. I am very grateful for what I have and I like being able to help people who are less fortunate. I also volunteer because it makes me smile when I am able to put a smile on other people’s faces and it is just a great feeling.

How it has changed/impacted your life?

It has impacted and changed my life a lot. By volunteering has shown me that I should be grateful for what I have because there are a lot of people who don’t have much.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

My volunteering I believe has impacted the community and the children at my church. Because I believe that I can be an example to them and show the younger ones that volunteering is a great way to give back to the community and that it feels great to be able to help those who are less fortunate.

Shakti Rising, a social change organization transforming the lives of women, girls, and the larger community.

Why do you volunteer?

The work at Shakti is to cultivate the health and emerging leadership of women and girls, particularly society’s unlikely leaders. I volunteer because I, myself, was an unlikely leader, and through my own personal transformation, I have developed a better understanding of who I am and how I show up – regardless of the “title” I hold. I absolutely believe in the power of the unlikely leader. Our world is rapidly changing and in desperate need of leaders who are creative, compassionate, ongoing learners, who are willing to ride their edge and step outside of the box. Shakti Rising specializes in this work, and therefore I am a true supporter and will remain actively involved in this movement for the rest of my life – I can’t imagine NOT being involved with Shakti!

How it has changed/impacted your life?

Since becoming involved with Shakti, I have fallen in love with the concept of “Transformative Leadership”, so much that I am now pursuing a Master’s Degree in Transformative Leadership to deepen my ability of becoming an agent of social change.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

Through my work at Shakti, I have contributed in a number of ways including facilitating classes (Karma Yoga, Living the Seasons, Transformation 101, Leadership 101, Communication 101, and volunteer training workshops), piloted an internship program, and established several teams to continue their leadership journey and spreading the Shakti ripple. I encourage you to check Shakti Rising out online at www.shaktirising.org

I am in Student Government, so I spend a lot of my time helping fellow student government officials with their events. I also help at Church with planning and going to retreats for Confirmation students.

Why do you volunteer?

I love to volunteer I feel like I always get something back from it. I always learn something new and have definitely been exposed to new people and experiences.

How it has changed/impacted your life?

Volunteering for me, is something that I really enjoy doing, and I find fun to do. Some people dread it, but I feel the experiences I have and the networks I am able to make, open up my world for endless possibilities.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

Volunteering in Student Government helps make sure events for students are put into play, and students are able to get the best out of what the event has to offer. For Church I feel I always impact younger teens who come to me for advice or just like having me as someone to hear them out.

Long Beach. I founded/co-created an organization we call LBTAC (“L, B, tack”)…Long Beach Theatre Arts Collaborative. It’s a completely voluntary group under the non-profit group Catalyst Community to better integrate the multiple theatre companies (and audiences) in LB.

Why do you volunteer?

There are actually over 20 companies in this city of over 500,000, and they rarely interact because they’re all busy focusing on their own companies. My job as facilitator (which has actually been in hibernation for a couple months) is to have monthly meetings and keep these theatre professionals in contact so we can better serve the community. There are many who share the belief that Long Beach is a major arts destination (as opposed to “everything” being in Hollywood/LA) and LBTAC was created to better unify the theatre community, only one aspect of the broad arts spectrum in this town.

How it has changed/impacted your life?

It greatly enriched my own artistic development. I moved down to LB in 2009 (when I transferred into CSULB as a Theatre Arts-Directing major), and when I started writing for the Long Beach Acting Examiner in 2010, I started hearing more about the overall theatre community. As I interviewed more theatre professionals in the LBC, I began to realize how much they all wanted something like this, but didn’t have the time to focus on being the pied piper. From my (somewhat unbiased) angle (somewhat, because I wasn’t attached to any of the major companies as an undergrad), I was best suited to contact everyone and be the herald for this brand new endeavor. So for myself, this became a fantastic avenue to network and learn much about the business of theatre outside the classroom while learning about the art inside.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

It encouraged theatre professionals (who work sometimes literally within walking distance of each other) the opportunity to catch up with other artists, at least once a month. This developed into more frequent communications via email, facebook, etc and the sharing of props, networking for designers and actors, and truly a cultivation of an art that we all simply want to share with this city.

Thank you to everyone who submitted stories, and if you’re interested in volunteering in your communities, let us know!

Where do you volunteer?

I am a part of the Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity and what makes us so unique is that we own and operate our own philanthropy organization, Push America. It is a non-profit organization that works to raise funds and awareness for people with developmental and physical disabilities. The event I participated in is “Journey of Hope” – it’s a bike trek from the West Coast to East Coast, all for people with disabilities.

Why do you volunteer?

I volunteer because I believe in giving back to the community. I dedicated my summer to raising money and spreading awareness of this cause by participating in a yearly bike trek from Long Beach to Washington D.C. Every time we arrived into a city, it was amazing to see the smiles on the kid’s faces as they watched us riding in.

How it has changed/impacted your life?

People with disabilities have abilities that far outshine the disability. One thing we like to say at Pi Kappa Phi is “they’re people first” meaning that even though they have a disability, they are a person none the less. They have amazing abilities that most people overlook when they see a person with a disability. I feel very inspired by them. I recall a time when it was 110 degrees during our ride and I wanted to quit, I thought about what someone with a disability is going through and realized they can’t simply put down their disability and call it quits, so I just can’t stop.

How has your volunteering impacted the community/organization you serve?

This year was the 25th Anniversary of the ride. It has shown in some of our friendship visits along the way that we impact many people’s lives. For some people, this is the event they wait for year round to take place. The experience is of immense happiness. Just knowing I can make that difference in someone’s life is incredible.