LYNN – U.S. Coast Guard reservist Petty Officer 2nd Class Aurea Vazquez of Lynn has been nominated for Reserve Enlisted Person of the Year.While assigned to the Coast Guard office in Boston, she worked tirelessly as a Sea Partners Campaign coordinator within Sector Boston’s Prevention Department. A marine science technician, Vazquez organized eight beach cleanup events in Lynn and Nahant, where 700 volunteers removed hundreds of pounds of garbage from the Massachusetts’ shoreline last year.Sea Partners is a Coast Guard-wide effort to develop environmental education, awareness and outreach. “I felt tremendous pride. Not only were we able to get people to show up, we were able to bring home the message and help change people’s mindsets about taking pride in their community and cleaning up the beaches,” she said.Vazquez did not limit her work to beach cleanups. She attended 10 regional maritime festivals where she distributed marine environmental education material to over 1,800 people and conducted 22 marine environmental education presentations, reaching another 1,000 children and adults, according to the Coast Guard.The young woman said a large part of the outreach effort was to inspire young people. “We really want to influence the kids,” she said. “And we want them to get excited and pass it on to their friends and their families.”Sector Boston Commander Capt. Gail Kulisch recognized the success Vazquez was having and nominated her for the First Coast Guard District’s Reserve Enlisted Person of the Year. While Vazquez didn’t win, Kulisch noted the “countless thank you letters from classes and community leaders for her time and expertise in showing them the harmful effects of marine debris.”Vazquez joined the Coast Guard in 2006 and became a marine science technician after graduating from the service’s school geared to that specialty in Yorktown, Va. She had already earned a degree from the University of Massachusetts in earth science and geography, and saw enlisting as a way to further pursue her passion for environmental issues.”The marine science school was perfectly in line with what I was doing with my school work,” Vazquez said. “I wanted to get back into environmental stuff. From a young age, I was always interested in things like cleaning up sidewalks near my home.”Although Vazquez was clear about her passion working as a Sea Partners coordinator, the assignment was only temporary. Her military career took a different direction when she volunteered for an assignment in the Coast Guard’s Eighth District, which covers a large portion of the southern U.S.”We’re basically doing port security here,” she said, explaining that there is a military loading facility in nearby Beaumont, Texas that ships supplies for the global war on terrorism.Vazquez became boat crew qualified while in Texas, a deployment that ends Sept. 15. Since last October, she has been working at a Marine Safety Unit about 90 miles east of Houston in Port Arthur, Texas, and eagerly anticipating the return to her Lynn home, where she organized the beach cleanups last year.”I’d love to get involved with Sea Partners again,” she said.