NSU alumna Gabriela Alvarado Blume moved from Venezuela to the United States of America about 10 years ago with her family after her parents won the green card lottery, a United States of America program for receiving a permanent residency card.
“My parents applied for that in Venezuela, and we were very lucky to win,” Blume said, who remains proud of her culture. She identifies as Hispanic and Latina.
“How lucky we are to be born and raised in a community where family is everything, and we’re helping each other and lending a helping hand when needed,” said Blume.
Blume’s innate drive to help her community came from her culture and led her to a career in journalism so that she could inform communities on significant issues.
When she worked at Telemundo and NBC, she wrote stories informing people about what is going on in her community.
She is now working in community engagement at NSU supporting the South Florida community.
After completing her bachelor’s in International Business at Florida Atlantic University, she started her journalism career covering U.S. and international news, sports and entertainment for Telemundo and NBC News. She traveled around the world, reporting from Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia.
Gabriela Blume is an NSU alumna who works at the Levan Center of Innovation to affect change in the community. COURTESY OF KRISTA LEE PHOTOGRAPHY.
But she covered a series of tragic stories that inspired her to shift her career path.
“In my last assignment, I actually found myself covering stories that were very tragic,” Blume said. “They were concerning to me as a Hispanic and as a human being.” Blume covered a series of mass shootings in a three-to- four-week time frame. She reported on four shootings while doing 24/7 coverage. The events in the shooting were so traumatic that she decided to leave her career in journalism.
These stories changed the way she wanted to help her community.
“I wanted to stop continuously covering or continuously seeing violations of human rights against Hispanics, and these were stories I was always covering over and over again,” she said. “I questioned, why do I keep doing this? What I want to do now is to continue telling the story, but from a decision-making standpoint.”
Blume wanted to support her community, citing her Hispanic heritage as motivation. She wanted to do this by making decisions to aid her community instead of reporting on the events happening in the community. So, she enrolled at NSU as a master’s student in public administration.
“I wanted to stop seeing stories of mass shootings,” Blume said.
She graduated last June. Blume chose to study public administration to learn about public service, leadership topics, social service, social science, community and economic development.
While earning her degree, she also worked full time for the university’s advancement team, where she assisted with fundraising for scholarships and research at the university. Last year, she transitioned from this role into her current role as the director of community engagement at the Levan Center of Innovation at NSU.
As director of community engagement, Blume and her team assist in bringing economic development to South Florida. She does this by leveraging tools and resources inside and outside of the NSU community. Her work helps support companies and entrepreneurs in the South Florida community.
“[As] Hispanics, we are so much more than the colorful image people have painted over us. We’re also very smart and ambitious,” she said. “We want to help our communities and we want to help the next generation.”
Starting Dec. 25, Blume will relocate to Jacksonville with her family to follow a new professional path in communications and community.
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