Admin serves food, sews bandanas after hours

By Grant Terwilliger

Marco Ayala-Perez isn’t just a Student Health and Counseling Center administrator, but a chef on a monthly cooking show on WCAX Channel 3, a dog shelter volunteer and a creator of bandanas for dogs in need of adoption.

Ayala-Perez has been working in the media industry for more than 17 years. He went to Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas in Mexico, where he is originally from, and graduated with a degree in communication sciences. Ayala-Perez started his career as a radio DJ and began getting interested in video editing, eventually leading him to TV work for the University of Vermont Extension in 2005. 

The show he works for is called Across the Fence and early on, he worked as the assistant to the producer. A lot of the time in that position, he would create the food that was shown on screen during the program. 

“Eventually, what ended up happening is the producer wanted to take less responsibility, so some of that started shifting towards me,” Ayala-Perez said. “So I was hosting the cooking show with other people. That was our structure.”

During COVID-19, everything changed: Ayala-Perez was not able to go into the studio anymore and began running the cooking show at home by himself. Amidst the pandemic he decided to make a major change in his life but still have a connection with media and cooking.

“I decided to make a change in careers, so I moved to Plattsburgh, New York, and I started working for the COVID vaccination site, which then led me here to SUNY, where I was coordinating the isolation and quarantine program,” Ayala-Perez said. “I still wanted to keep a link to, sort of, my creative life. … When I moved over here to Plattsburgh, I was asked to still do a cooking show.”

When the isolation and quarantine program ended, Ayala-Perez started working for the Student Health and Counseling Center. 

He then started getting into other hobbies, such as sewing, which he first learned in order to hem his jeans.

After a conversation with a coworker at the Health Center, he had the idea to start making bandanas for dogs. The first bandana was for Boris the therapy dog.

 “I looked up a YouTube tutorial on how to make bandanas for dogs, and I made Boris a bandana, which he liked, which then led me to start doing bandanas for friends that have dogs, and for my own dogs,” Ayala-Perez said. “Now I have

this little project where I’ve been making bandanas that I want to donate to the (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).”

Through his volunteer work, Ayala-Perez found that dogs wearing bandanas in photos are more likely to be adopted. He is also a volunteer for the nonprofit Green Mountain Pug, which rescues dogs and fosters them until they can find a good home. Ayala-Perez has two dogs that he fostered from the program and fell in love with: Nico from northern New York and Nabi from South Korea. 

In his day-to-day life, Ayala-Perez enjoys working with students and helping students reach their health goals, so they can be the best version of themselves both mentally and physically.

“I really enjoy working here at SUNY Plattsburgh,” Ayala-Perez said. “It’s been a very dramatic change from what I used to do, but it’s also very rewarding.”