Tina’s began her career in a nonprofit setting at the Living Coast Discovery Center for over 32 years as the Volunteer and Programs Manager. She also served as the chair for the Sustainability Commission for Chula Vista until late 2022.   She served on the City of Chula Vista’s Zero Waste & Single-use Plastic Ban Committee and is currently on the Port of San Diego’s Bayfront Cultural Design Committee. In 2020, Tina created the nonprofit, South Bay Sustainable Communities Network (SBSC) where she engages her South Bay community on how to lead a sustainable lifestyle through neighborhood composting, organized community clean-ups, guided nature hikes, and by hosting gardening and zero waste workshops.

In 2023, through Tina’s leadership, 16 SBSC neighborhood composting sites throughout the South Bay composted 40K pounds of food waste.  The harvested compost was returned to the community for family gardens and landscapes.  SBSC also rescued over 7K pounds of edible foods from going into the landfill and returned it to the many food-insecure and homeless families in the South Bay, senior citizen, and refugee organizations, Southwestern College Student Food Pantry, and many local daily and weekly food drives.

Realizing that our youth is our future, Tina began educating our youth on taking action to reduce the impact of climate change by creating Youth 4 a Sustainable Future (Y4SF), at our local Schools.  This student-led program teaches students about sorting food waste and keeping organics out of the landfill.  Since it’s beginnings in February 2022, Y4SF has expanded into 12 local schools diverting over 103,500 pounds of food waste from the landfill and preventing over 70K pounds of CO2e, GHG emissions from being released into our atmosphere.  Out of this, over 87K pounds were rescued, edible foods that went to feed food-insecure families in the South Bay.

Since beginning South Bay Sustainable Communities Network, Tina has received the Melvin Jones Fellow Award from the Lions Club International Foundation and has led the nonprofit to receive the Organization Award for Sustainable Champion from the City of Chula Vista.  With spotlights in the San Diego Union-Tribune, and Our Hometown publication, Tina is anxious to educate communities to take action and lower their environmental impact by participating in neighborhood food scrap collections, backyard composting and urban farming programs in hopes of creating a healthy and sustainable future.

Tina Matthias additionally was awarded The United States House of Representatives Constituent of the Month by Congressman Juan Vargas.

In her spare time, she is a member of The Rotary Club of Chula Vista, an avid hiker, enjoys her garden, prides herself on growing all the food she eats, and loves to bake goodies for all her volunteers, friends, and family.