PROJECT 2020 FOUNDERS
Brenda Villa
Skylar Dorosin
Brenda Villa has competed with the USA women's national team for the last 16 years. She has represented her country in 4 Olympic games and is one of two water polo players to have medaled in all 4 Olympic Games with her final medal in London being of the gold variety. Brenda attended Stanford University where she earned her BA in Political Science ('03) and helped lead the Cardinal to it's first NCAA title in 2002. Before arriving at Stanford Brenda played on the Bell Garden's High School boys water polo team where she helped the team win multiple CIF titles. During a time when women's water polo was just getting started, Brenda had to compete with boys and was the first girl to start on a boys HS team and win a title. In addition to her achievements in the pool, Brenda was the first student from her high school to attend Stanford University. As a first generation Mexican-American she is very grateful for the courage her parents showed in seeking a better life for their kids in the US.
Skylar Dorosin is a sophomore at Stanford University. She grew up in Palo Alto, CA and attended Palo Alto High School. Skylar is on the Stanford Women's Water Polo team and competed for Palo Alto High. Skylar started Project 2020 in the fall of 2008, while a freshman at Castilleja High School. Competing in a tournament in the spring of 2008 in Commerce, a working class community in East Los Angeles, triggered her desire to bring water polo to lower socio-economic communities around her hometown. Commerce’s aquatics programs and complex are entirely funded by the city, providing Commerce youth, who would not otherwise have access to a pool, with the chance to learn to swim, play water polo and, in some cases, to change their lives. Inspired by what she saw in Commerce, she felt determined to help make a change in her surrounding communities with aquatics and bring the confidence and opportunities that come with it. She immediately found pool space and recruited volunteers. Over the next three years 150 girls went through the program. It was now time to make Project 2020 bigger and better. Brenda Villa, was just the person to help do that.