Akins students and staff gathered on campus on Wednesday to share their memories and mourn the passing of a beloved teacher Christina Garcia-Mata, who died on Monday during a hiking accident.

Students filled tables with bouquets of flowers and baskets with written remembrances of Garcia-Mata who had taught at Akins since 2006. In 2018, she was voted the 2017-2018 Akins Teacher of the Year. She has served in various roles at Akins, including the campus AVID coordinator and the Green Tech Academy coordinator. She has taught various classes at Akins, including Teen Leadership, SEL, U.S. History and AVID.

Garcia-Mata’s Gathering of Remembrance will be held in El Paso on July 7 from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. at Sunset Funeral Home at East 750 N. Carolina Street. This service will be live streamed. This post will be updated when info on how to watch the live stream is available.

The Akins theater will be open at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, July 7, for all faculty (current and past) to gather and watch the service.

Akins staff mourned the passing of beloved teacher Ms. Garcia-Mata today. Her friends are asking for donations via GoFundMe to help her surviving husband and son.