Theme: ideas that elevate

This is Modesto's first annual TEDx event. Our theme is “Ideas that Elevate.” We will be featuring seven speakers with a wide range of topics; all of which have the potential to lift up the individuals they reach, and by extension, the greater community. The Talks will be attended by over 400 participants and streamed online for a wider local and international audience.

Gallo Center For The Arts
1000 I St.
Modesto, California, 95354
United States

Elizabeth Wight

CEO / Interfaith Ministries

Elizabeth (Greenlee) Wight is CEO of Interfaith Ministries in Modesto, and the creator of IFM’s Feed Modesto programs, including the Free Mobile Farmers Market. Elizabeth is a native Modestan. She studied business at WGU, but considers herself to be educated by travel, voracious reading, working all manner of odd jobs, and by enduring and overcoming deep emotional and physical pain on her way to finding her calling.  She is the mother of two luminous children, Christian and Fiona, and married to digital marketing guru, Chris Wight.

Emmanuel Escamilla

Program Founder / CodeX

Emmanuel Escamilla studied at Modesto Junior College, completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a graduate student at Harvard University. Since the founding of CodeX, he has been recognized as a McNair Scholar, Harvard Innovation Lab Fellow, Forbes Under 30 Scholar, and has won the Westly Prize for Young Innovators in California. His experiences were the inspiration for founding the CodeX Program. As an education nonprofit, CodeX exposes low-income middle school students to computer science and technology through summer and afterschool programs.

Eric Jung

COO / Love Our Cities

Eric Jung is the Director of City Engagement for Love Our Cities and works with over 60 cities throughout the west coast in running city wide volunteer events and initiatives. When he’s not working with cities, Eric spends time providing green, affordable housing internationally. He holds a BA in Business Administration from Point Loma Nazarene University and Finance and a Masters Degree in Transformational Leadership from Bethel Seminary. He and his wife, Kara, have three girls and a boy, ages 8,6,4 and 2.

Erica Ormsby

PhD candidate

Erica Ormsby has created several successful companies, designing programs in physical and emotional wellness for the past 17 years. She finds joy in the little things and loves to laugh. She jokes that she eats books for breakfast. Her passion is fueled by her desire to help elevate joy in humanity by strategically inspiring possibility and personal power through the integration of ancient wisdom, leading edge science and courageous life experience. Erica’s husband Brad and son Kai are the lights of her life. As she pursues her Ph.D. in Research Psychology and her first book every step of her effort is focused on empowering people to live to their highest potential in mind, body, and business.

Sam Pierstorff

Teacher, Poet / Modesto Junior College

Sam Pierstorff received his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from CSU Long Beach and went on to become the youngest Poet Laureate ever appointed in the state of California when he was selected to the position in 2004 by the city of Modesto where he currently teaches English at Modesto Junior College. He is the founding editor of Quercus Review Press and creator of The ILL List, California’s most prestigious poetry slam competition. He has published more than 200 poems and has performed his poems at universities and colleges across the country including Harvard, UOP, UC Merced, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection,Growing Up in Someone Else’s Shoes, was published by World Parade Books in 2010. That same year, he co-edited More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, which launched to #1 on Amazon's Poetry Best Seller list upon its release. Lastly and most ridiculously, he was a contestant on NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, Season 6, and was recently selected out o

Sherry McIntyre

Teacher / Johansen High School

Sherry McIntyre has been teaching Modesto's World Religions course to the freshmen of Johansen High School since it's debut in 2000. She also teaches in the teacher credential program at Brandman University. A resident of Modesto for 20 years, Sherry is mother to six children ages 32-12 and is married to her high school sweetheart.