HELPING HANDS

2019 Graduation from HCCC

Photo by Hccc

Diego teaching an informal class

Diego teaching an informal class

Panacea Alliance

By Tara Ryazansky

Photos Courtesy of Diego Villatoro

The idea for Panacea Alliance came about after founder Diego Villatoro volunteered for a Hackensack River cleanup.

“Some friends and I were talking about there needing to be more of a spirit of stewardship and a commitment to our local community,” he explains. “We wanted to do something more centered towards our communities here in Hudson County.”

Villatoro is a Bayonne newcomer. He is originally from Honduras and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“I moved to New Jersey for school,” Villatoro says.

He is currently a graduate student at Rutgers-Newark, where he studies economics.

“I feel that this is interconnected with what I’m studying. For example, one of the specific fields of economics that I’m looking into is urban economics and part of that is our local green spaces and how they help us generally have a better life in urban settings,” Villatoro says. “Here in our Bayonne local parks, the big one and the one closest to where I live around 16th Street, you can go there on just about any day and the shoreline does not look good.

“I understand a lot of people bring up concerns like how is this really making a change. Some people may say, ‘Why are you wasting time doing something like that?’ We think that it’s important to get as much plastic away from the shores because it’s where our wildlife lives. All of this plastic is getting broken away and it’s coming back into our water system. The more that we get out of our water system, the better it is for us.”

A Need to Serve

Villatoro has always been driven to help.

“After I finished high school, I didn’t think college was for me. I didn’t think I was smart enough. I didn’t think I could make it or anything. So I thought, you know, I want to do something with my life. As an immigrant, I felt like I wanted to give back to the country that had adopted my family and me so I saw

no other better way than to serve the country,” Villatoro says. “I was active duty for about seven years. During that time, I did a tour of duty in Iraq, I did two overseas tours, one in Germany and one in Korea, and after a while seeing that wealth disparity throughout the world in the different places that I traveled when I was with the military active duty. It got me really interested in learning more about economics and wealth disparities and why some people have and some are have-nots. I wanted to see how I could be of service there and see how I could help in that situation. I left the Army and came here to New Jersey and decided to put it all in on economics.”

Making a Connection

Villatoro hopes to bring the student and veteran communities together to help the Panacea Alliance with its mission.

“We plan to engage other students from around our community from student organizations at Rutgers, Saint Peter’s University and Hudson County Community College,” Villatoro says. “Being in the service, I believe that a lot of us have that yearning to continue to serve our communities. I believe that’s a great source of connection that we help to build within our veteran communities as well.”

Panacea Alliance hopes to host its first event in Bayonne in the middle of April. Follow along on Instagram at @panjnc for more information.

“The goal of our organization is to inspire all residents here in Bayonne and around Hudson to take that step so when they see that bottle in the street, they have that initiative to pick it up and be excited about conservationism and sustainability. We want to pass on that spirit of stewardship.” — BLP

Hackensack River Keepers shore clean up. Diego with friend and founding member, Anass Ennasrooui.

Hackensack River Keepers shore clean up. Diego with friend and founding member, Anass Ennasraoui.