ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT: DESTINY LIPKA
Destiny with Assemblyman Joe DeStefano
Below is Destiny’s speech from the Workers Circle’s Westchester School’s B’nei Mitsve program where she describes her advocacy for New York Assembly Bill 2525. The bill passed!
For my social justice project, I decided to be an advocate. An advocate is a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy. There are many things I care about and one of them is helping kids in foster care. I was in foster care as a young child and I was lucky enough to get adopted, but many kids don’t get a forever family. My dad explained that there are bills in New York that can help kids in foster care and that we could advocate to make one of them a law. We looked at a bunch of bills and settled on a bill that “increases the monthly rent subsidy for housing for a foster child living on their own.” This bill is called New York Assembly Bill 2525 and it is really important because these kids need more help to get a safe place to live, especially in places like Westchester or New York City. I understood what this bill could do, and why it was important, but what could I do about it?
My dad told me a secret: if you want to talk to fancy people in government, all you have to do is ask. He said if somebody bothers to reach out to them, they are worth listening to. I started by writing emails to people who were co-sponsors of the bill. That means that they already support it, and I wanted to learn why they support it and what I could do to help. I was so happy when several important staff from assembly offices not only got back to me, but offered to meet with me over zoom.
During my first of four zoom meetings, I spoke with Alyssa Jacobs, the District Director for Assemblywoman MaryJane Shimsky, who is the Assemblywoman where I live. I also met with Heather Lackey, who is the Chief of Staff for Assemblyman Chris Burdick, who is also in Westchester and a co-sponsor of the bill. After, I met with Alexa Arecchi, Chief Of Staff for Assemblyman Hevesi. This was important because Assemblyman Hevesi was the original sponsor of the bill. Finally, I met with Ernesto Porcari, Legislator Director for New York State Senator Samra Brouk.
Alexa said the money for foster kids living on their own is only $300 and hasn’t been raised in over a decade. Alyssa said that every two years, there are over 10,000 bills introduced and it is hard for any bill to pass. This is why a bill that has a lot of support still might not pass.
Ernesto said really interesting things, like that one of the reasons they became a co-sponsor was because their legislative aid was in the foster care system and advocated for this and other bills in their office.
Everyone treated me like an adult who could make a difference. Heather called me a courageous advocate and it made me very proud. A few days later, I got a personally written letter from Assemblyman Burdick, which was awesome.
I learned so much during each meeting and everyone was very nice. But I wanted to actually do something. Heather said the bill was stuck in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee so I decided to email all 35 the members of that committee with a personal message, my story, and explaining how important this bill was to kids aging out of foster Care.
Does my story end here? Of course not. My dad told me another secret; that if we went to the Capitol in Albany, we could meet people in person. We could set up meetings and in-between them, we could just stop by offices. On April 24th, my Dad took me to Albany. He was my secretary and kept track of all my meetings, but I was going to be the advocate.
My first meeting was with Assemblyman Joe DeStefano, not with his staff, but with the actual Assemblyman. We talked for a long time, I told him my story and he told me about his. He was already a co-sponsor of the bill, which was great.
As it turned out, everyone in the capitol was trying to pass the state budget and things were a little hectic. A few meetings were canceled, but that gave me time to just walk into offices. I would say “Hello, I am an advocate for Assembly Bill 2525a, is there someone I can talk to about this”. And almost every office had someone important for me to talk to. Most people didn’t know about this bill and I explained why it was so important. They took me very seriously and asked lots of questions. I also learned that this bill could pass as part of the state budget and wouldn’t need its own vote, so I started asking people to make this a priority as well.
By the end of the day, I had spoken with staff at 17 offices in the Assembly and the Senate, including the Assembly Majority Leader, the Assembly Ways and Means Chair, and the Senate Finance Committee Chair. It was an amazing day and I felt like I was really making a difference.
Seeing how the government worked was really interesting. Maybe if I ever work in the government, or you ever work in government, you could fight for issues that are important to you too.