Artist & Community Organizer. Gabino is a community organizer at Yonkers Sanctuary Movement, a grassroots organization that mobilizes to keep immigrant families safe from detention and deportation and to fight for justice for the undocumented community in Yonkers.  He recently started Grupo Multicultural y Social to teach and promote the culture of his community. This multicultural social group hosted a Day of the Dead event in Yonkers that was attended by hundreds.

Gabino’s start as an organizer in 1994 by fighting with a group of fellow textile factory workers to be paid the wages they were owed. In 2014, he started an organization called Somos Los Otros NY, along with friends and family members. This group formed after the disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico whose own Government killed and disappeared them. They have protested and have brought attention to the problems of corruption in Mexico. Gabino uses his artistic abilities to paint banners and masks that are used in the protests.

Gabino is an irrigation technician for a lawn sprinkler company. Everything he has learned he has acquired through his own efforts and his desire to learn.

Community Organizer and Trainer. Juanita is the Hudson Valley Organizing and Training Director for Community Voices Heard (CVH), a member-led multi-racial organization. CVH is principally comprised of women of color and low-income New York families who seek social, economic and racial justice for all. Juanita trains members of the community to lead strategic campaigns that bring issues affecting low-income people to the forefront. Juanita began her work as a community organizer with the Minnesota chapter of ACORN in 2004. Since then, she has worked on numerous electoral campaigns at the city, state and federal level in various capacities.

Born and raised in Saint Paul, MN, she graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a B.A. in History and Political Science, and received her Masters of Advocacy and Political Leadership Degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Juanita is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. 

Artist, Healer, and Mother. Kathleen (Kat) Cancio was born in Pampanga, Philippines and currently resides in occupied Lenape territory, a.k.a. Spring Valley, NY. Her early activism was inspired by her experience growing up in the East Ramapo Central School District (ERCSD) where public education was constantly under attack by corrupt leadership. Having fought to defend the public school system as a student and now alumna, Kat has developed a deep love for her community and continues to combat injustices on behalf of future generations.

Kat’s lifework and passions also include a focus on the arts; youth and women’s empowerment; spiritual growth; ancestral healing and indigenous rights.

Kat helps support the Ramapough Lenape Nation in their struggle for land, cultural preservation and the protection of mother earth. She served as the Coordinator of Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp, a Ramapough-led campaign that stood in solidarity with the Standing Rock protests and against the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline in New Jersey. Kat was recently appointed to the Board of Directors for the Ramapough Lenape Nation. 

Organizer, Fundraiser, Nonprofit Strategist. Maria is from Mount Vernon, NY where she was first introduced to faith-based and coalition community-organizing as a young child through the Coalition for the Empowerment of People of African Ancestry (CEPAA). In 2004, while still an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Maria co-founded New Voices for Reproductive Justice to promote the complete health and well-being of black women, girls, and femmes. The organization is still headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, with offices in Philadelphia and Cleveland as well.

Maria has been a professional fundraiser and nonprofit strategist for 15 years, having raised more than $100 million for organizations such as Wave Hill (Bronx, NY), the National Black Child Development Institute, the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), and the National Urban League (New York, NY).

Maria has been a Leading Organizer with Purpose Productions, helping artists and organizers with strategic planning, crowd funding, administration and other crucial needs.  Maria has been coordinating the New York Youth Justice Initiative since 2018 and is a current Westchester County African American Advisory Board member.

Artist, Organizer, Radical Dreamer, Creatrix, Strategic Thinker, Abolitionist, Healer. Rae Leiner is a black-identified multi-racial queer organizer, activist and parent living in the Hudson Valley. Rae’s professional trajectory is primarily focused on social justice and movements for transformative change. Rae is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Newburgh LGBTQ+ center and is the former director of the Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative in the city of Newburgh. Rae was also a Community Voices Heard organizer in Orange County and brings 15+ years of professional experience in the not-for-profit field and social justice work.

As an experienced facilitator, organizer, strategic thinker, embodied practitioner, and relationship builder, Rae’s creative thinking, radical dreaming and informative analysis work toward creating an equitable society.