Mendez is passionate about mental health and helping others. She is a crisis counselor for Teenline, a peer-to-peer crisis hotline that is a division of Didi Hirsh and Cedar Sinai Medical Center. As a weekly volunteer, she answers calls from teens in crisis, offers support, aids in crisis intervention, and assists with resources. From helping callers fill out child abuse or rape forms to staying on the phone for more than three hours to make sure an actively suicidal caller gets to the hospital safely, the work she does at Teenline can be intense. Yet, the challenging calls are the most rewarding for Mendez. After going through a 65-hour intensive training, she quickly passed the roleplay tests, completed double the required hours of volunteering, and in her first month, earned the Listener of the Month award. 

In addition to crisis counseling, Mendez is an outspoken voice about mental health. She has appeared on television and has been repeatedly interviewed by the media, including prestigious outlets such as KCAL Morning News on CBS, Good Day LA on Fox, the Los Angeles Times, and others. She has also spent time in Sacramento lobbying for mental health bills and is the social coordinator for her school’s chapter of The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Mendez recently started an Instagram account @MentalHealthwithMendez to educate people about mental health issues, provide resources, and help people to know that they are not alone in their struggles.

A leader on campus, Mendez is a lead ambassador, working for her school’s admissions office. She tours perspective families, gives presentations, speaks on panel discussions, coordinates trainings, and runs admissions events. At her high school, Mendez co-founded the Menstrual Equity Project, where she works to destigmatize menstruation, combat period poverty, and organize product drives for homeless shelters, women's shelters, and underserved local schools. She is also the president of the service-learning club at school where she assists the student body with finding local community service projects that align with their interest and presents about the community at assemblies.

An experienced writer and editor, Mendez has served as an editor for the DEIJ, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice, section of her school paper for years. She is most proud of the articles “The Stigma of Principles Math Class,” “The Ill-effects of Andrew Tate” and “Menstruation Shouldn’t Be Stigmatized. Period.” 

Mendez is an accomplished athlete. She has been a figure skater since the age of three. Having medaled individually and in group ensembles for many years, she most recently placed fourth in the 2024 ISI World Championships as well as first place in the 2024 California State Games. In addition, she acts as a choreographer for her school’s dance department. 

Mendez has a passion for working with children and a deep interest in child development. For the past three summers, she has been a camp counselor at Tumbleweed Day Camp. Over the last four years, she has also served as a madrichim, teaching Hebrew and lessons on Jewish holidays to children in religious school, as well as tutoring bar and bat mitzvah students. Additionally, she taught an Advanced Hebrew course that prepares students for their bar and bat mitzvahs.

Mendez is excited to have a future career in psychology and mental health. She’s particularly interested in the areas of cognitive science, neuropsychology, and child development.