From the Westchester -Working Families Party:
Congratulations to our Chapter Chair Jennifer Cabrera on her well deserved election as a New York Working Families Party State Co-Chair!
And congratulations to our Chapter Steering Committee member and Yonkers Sanctuary Movement/Movimiento Santuario Yonkers co-founder Diana Sanchez on joining the NYWFP State Committee representing CD16!
Full Press Release from the NYS WFP:
NYWFP ELECTS NEW SLATE OF PARTY OFFICERS FOR 2026-2028 PERIOD
The New York Working Families Party (NYWFP) has a new slate of Party officers, who represent the true diversity of New York State. At a moment when voters across the country are seeking a political home that represents who they are, the NYWFP is answering the call.
With 35 days until Election Day, NYWFP is running towards November powered by leaders who are laser-focused on getting hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to vote for candidates on the WFP ballot line.
“We’re very excited to welcome a new slate of officers that will continue to usher the New York Working Families Party forward to stand against corporate powers, fight for an affordable New York, and elect candidates that govern with working families at the center of policymaking,” said Jasmine Gripper, NYWFP Director.
During the nomination process, candidates of different backgrounds and roles within the Party came forward to express their interest in serving—some have been leaders in chapters, and others have assumed high-level responsibility assessing political, legal, and financial risk with community or labor affiliate organizations. The new NYWFP officers are:
Jonathan Bix is the Executive Director of For the Many, an organization he co-founded in 2012. For the Many organizes in the Hudson Valley around statewide and local progressive electoral, legislative, and labor campaigns and has been an affiliate of NYWFP since 2019.
Jonathan has been active as a part of candidate interviews, petitioning, turning out votes on the WFP line, electing WFP candidates up and down the ballot, including for State Legislators Michelle Hinchey and Sarahana Shrestha, and flipping the Dutchess and Orange County Legislatures last year for the first time in decades. Jonathan and For the Many have also taken a big role in fighting for WFP-priority legislation in Albany – including driver’s licenses for all, Good Cause Eviction, and the Build Public Renewables Act – and are focused on continuing to significantly grow the Party in the Hudson Valley.
Jennifer Cabrera joined the Westchester-Putnam Chapter of the Working Families Party in early 2021. She served as the chapter’s Vice Chair from 2022-2024, and has been co-chair since 2024. Through her chapter’s close relationship with its affiliates, Jennifer became a board member of Community Voices Heard Power in 2024.
Jennifer lives in Ossining in northern Westchester (CD-17), where she is also very active. She is a working mom of two young children and the daughter of Dominican parents who immigrated to the United States with their families as teenagers. She moved to NYC in 2007 and settled in Ossining in 2016.
Daniel Coates is currently the Co-Director of Make the Road Action in NY, and has been leading the organization’s political work since 2024. He has been representing the organization as an affiliate in WFP spaces during that time, making hard endorsement decisions, knocking on doors for endorsed candidates, and making sure our electeds deliver for our communities and working people during the legislative sessions. The Working Families Party has been his political home for nearly 20 years, since the beginning of his career at Make the Road in 2008.
Daniel has worked in community organizing, local government, immigrant rights and social justice issues for close to two decades, at Make the Road New York, Community Change, and The Action Lab among other places. He has played key roles in local, state and federal campaigns including efforts to pass New York City’s sanctuary laws, to win congestion pricing in New York State, and multiple national campaigns for immigration reform, among others.
Michelle Crentsil is the Deputy Executive Director for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). NYSNA is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in New York, representing over 45,000 nurses across the state. For the previous six years she served as the union’s Political Director, helping to lead the organization through monumental strikes and contract negotiations, all while organizing for systematic changes in Albany and at City Hall. Prior to joining NYSNA’s political department, Michelle led organizing efforts at the Committee of Interns & Residents (CIR/SEIU) and SEIU Local 32BJ and was a funder and political and advocacy campaign advisor to the nationwide movement to end mass incarceration while on staff at Open Philanthropy.
Michelle found her political home at the WFP after engaging with the Party in the Occupy Wall Street movement; she has been a WFP registered voter for more than a decade, has been a dues-paying member of the Brooklyn Chapter, and has been an officer of the Party since 2021. She is also currently a NYC Regional Advisory Council co-chair.
Jen Gaboury serves as First Vice President of the PSC/CUNY, representing 30,000 academic workers at the City University of New York. She is a Lecturer teaching politics and gender/sexuality studies at Hunter College. She’s working on a book on segregation and the politics of sharing public facilities including bathrooms. Gaboury has served on the boards of CLAGS and Alternatives to Marriage Project, and has been a member of the Advisory Committee for the LGBT Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, where she worked.
Jen has been active in the WFP for years, and has represented PSC/CUNY before the Party. She is committed to building the left-labor cohort in New York City and sees the Working Families Party as central to that mission.
Olivia Leirer is currently the Executive Director of New York Communities for Change, where she has served in several roles for more than 15 years before becoming director in 2022. She began her career at NY ACORN under the tutelage of WFP founders Jon Kest and Bertha Lewis and was on the founding staff of NYCC with other former staff and members of NY-ACORN.
She has a wide range of experience in NYCC, starting as a canvasser at ACORN before becoming NYCC’s comms director, chief of staff, and deputy director. Her experience at NYCC has brought her in close contact with the WFP’s affiliate organizations and leadership, before she was elected a co-chair of the Party in 2024. NYCC has taken a leading role in the recent Brooklyn Assembly campaigns, successfully partnering this year with the Party to elect Christian Celeste Tate and Eon Huntley by defeating long-time incumbents.
Carolyn Martínez-Class is a coalition builder, community organizer and older sibling. Carolyn has over a decade of organizing experience with a focus on building power for Black, brown and immigrant communities. Carolyn is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where they studied public policy and history with a focus on migration and criminalization.
Carolyn is currently the Co-Director of Citizen Action of New York and the Public Policy and Education Fund. They have also worked for the Invest in Our New York Campaign and Communities United for Police Reform. Carolyn is a phenomenal fundraiser, who in addition to raising money for Citizen Action and PPEF has raised substantial funds for the New York Working Families Party and Working Families Organization.
After relocating in 1988 to a farm in Modena, NY, Sandra Oxford witnessed firsthand the harsh and unfair conditions farmworkers face. Appalled by the economic inequity and systemic racism remaining from the Jim Crow era, she became determined to serve as a strong ally to farmworkers and the NYS Farm Worker Justice Campaign. This commitment led to Sandra’s involvement in 2004 as an active member of the Working Families Parties’ Hudson Valley Regional Advisory Council. In addition to serving on the State Committee of the NYWFP and as a delegate to judicial conventions in New York’s 3rd Judicial District, she was elected as an officer of the New York State WFP in 2018 and proudly serves as its current Secretary.
Sandra’s service on various governmental and not-for-profit boards—focused on health, legal representation for the indigent, youth services, and immigrant advocacy—spans well over three decades and is complemented by her political activism and leadership. Presently, Sandy is part of the New York State Nurses Association’s Political and Community Organizing Department, working in the Hudson Valley/Catskill region.
For over 30 years and in various capacities, Kim Smith has championed Black & Brown low income communities. She previously served as an elected official in the Rochester City Council, and Public Health Administrator within local government. Currently, she is the Political Director for VOCAL-NY (Voices of Community Activist & Leaders) and the VOCAL Action Fund (C4). Within the C4 Kim created an Ambassador Program allowing low-income community members across the state to get politically involved within their local WFP Chapters. Kim is also on the WFP Rules Committee and Co-Chair of the Rochester Chapter. Kim advocates for state policies to end homelessness, the overdose crisis, mass incarceration, HIV and Family Policing.