Unsung hero: Costa Mesa’s Hydee Beth makes Westside feel the love

Hydee Beth has fallen in love several times in her life.

The Costa Mesa resident is smitten with her husband, John, whom she first met during a dance at Estancia High School some 29 years ago.

She has cherished the arrival of each of her four children.

She’s also come to adore the Westside neighborhood that’s been her home for more than two decades. Over the years, she’s committed her time and energy to make sure others fall just as hard for the community.

Since settling in Costa Mesa, Beth has been heavily involved in parent-teacher associations at Victoria Elementary School, TeWinkle Middle School and Estancia High, where she is PTSA president.

In those roles, Beth, 45, has devoted countless hours to planning and staging many programs to benefit schools and students — “just anything I can get my hands on,” she said with a laugh.

Among the efforts she’s most proud of is an annual drive that provides shoes and sweatshirts to needy students at TeWinkle.

“To me, it’s a privilege to be a PTA president or to be on a committee to get to help my community,” Beth said. “I always feel like I don’t need thanks; I don’t want recognition. I just want to quietly get things done.”

Beth was raised by her grandmother in Santa Ana and later in Huntington Beach.

Her grandmother was reluctant to let her attend neighborhood schools, so Beth found herself ferried to other campuses, feeling like an outsider wherever she went.

“I wasn’t going to school where I lived,” she said. “I was with kids I couldn’t relate to. It was very challenging and difficult.”

After moving to the Westside, Beth said, she encountered other parents who sent their children to schools outside the neighborhood, citing concerns that students from lower-income or Spanish-speaking families in the area could make classrooms less competitive.

Her own research didn’t bear out such worries. And given her experiences growing up, Beth felt strongly that there are scholastic and social benefits to educating children close to home.

Getting involved as a parent and volunteer was a natural follow-through, she said.

“If you invest where you’re at in your community, not just your kids benefit but everybody benefits,” she said.

Beth’s volunteerism isn’t limited to education. In October, she helped spearhead “Fall in Love with the Westside,” an artisans’ market and community gathering at Estancia.

Her hope is to coordinate other events showcasing the neighborhood and its schools.

That devotion inspired residents Diana and John Jason to nominate Beth as one of the Daily Pilot’s “Unsung Heroes” this year. In an email, they described her as “friendly, all-inclusive, kind, funny, forward-focused and energetic.”

“She’ll tell you the Westside of Costa Mesa is a gem, and she’s right,” they wrote. “What she might leave out of her description of the city she loves, however, is that she adds a lot of sparkle to that gem.”

From Beth’s perspective, though, she’s just doing what needs to be done.

“It’s surprising and I don’t feel worthy because I feel like I’m just doing what you should do,” she said. “It fills my heart to participate in this community.”

Editor’s note: This is an installment of Unsung Heroes, an annual feature that highlights otherwise overlooked members of the community.

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