My Story

Alexa Benson was born near Los Angeles, California. She spent most of her early years as a musician and received her Bachelors of Music with an emphasis in Vocal Performance from Chapman University. She changed careers in her late 20's and received her associates degree in Nursing in 2004. Ms. Benson worked in the Emergency Room while completing her certificate as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner from the Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Program in 2006.

Alexa continued her interest for women's issues and started working as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner at this time. This led to her being promoted as a Nurse Practitioner within the Department of Emergency Medicine and receiving her Master of Science in Nursing from the California State University, Long Beach and publishing her research on sexual assault examiner reliability. After 13 years working in a resident based Level I Trauma facility, Ms. Benson completed her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017 with honors. Her research was Developing the Vulvar Acute Genital Injury Scale (VAGIS) which focused on creating consistency in the way forensic examiners measured acute genital injury after sexual assault.

After working in private practice for 3 years and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided to leave her career in healthcare and begin her lifelong commitment of empowering women through partnerships to develop skills they could use to support themselves. She started the Non-Profit Women and Girls First. Women and Girls First is currently working to help women in Pakistan to become rural nurse midwives, in Mexico to help women gain craft skills and in Nigeria, to help one woman obtain a traditional education and 25 others learn how to sew.

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Within 2 years of arriving, Alexa was elected to the City Council of Veneta, where she is now a member of the Park Board, the Fern Ridge Advocates of the Unhoused Group (FRAUG) and the creator of Veneta Haunts, Veneta 4ths and Movies in the Park.

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Alexa currently lives in Veneta, Oregon.