Before joining Year Up, Lisette was
a consultant to nonprofit organizations in strategic planning, program
development and management and an instructor in Graduate Studies of
Public Administration at Brooklyn College. She is the former Chief of
the Staff for the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development
(DYCD), a NYC agency that is responsible for funding over a thousand
community based organizations. Prior to DYCD, Lisette was the Director
for Special Projects at the After-school Corporation where she designed
forums for superintendents and principals as well as pilot youth
mentoring programs in the local high schools. Lisette has also worked at
the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, where she served as Director of
Grants Management. She is interested in cultivating leadership in the
non-profit sector and previously was a recruiter with a nationally
recognized executive search firm as well as a consultant to non-profit
organizations in strategic planning, program development and management.
Clients have included Save the Children USA, Net Day, University of
Minnesota and others. Prior to consulting, Lisette was a Senior Program
Officer for the Corporation for National Service, overseeing AmeriCorps
programs in the Northeast. Her board experience includes being a
national board member of Jumpstart (a national early childhood education
program), and a Trustee of her alma mater Brooklyn College and the Board
Chair of the East Harlem Block Schools and a board member of Girls Can.
Lisette is also a Rhodes Scholar from 1992 and a graduate of the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public Affairs.
Dennis Acevedo,
Director of Outreach & Admissions
Dennis was born and
raised in Brooklyn, NY and now calls Jersey City his home where he lives
with his wife and 11-month-old son named DJ. Dennis most recently
worked with the NYC Department of Education as a Parent Support Officer
for Community School District 7 located in the South Bronx. In this
role, Dennis served as a problem solver for hundreds of parent concerns
in what is one of the most challenging and troubled school districts in
New York City. He advised school-based parent coordinators at 25
elementary and middle schools and provided training and technical
assistance to parent leaders and administrators throughout the district.
Prior to this position, Dennis was the Executive Director of the Latino
Student Fund, an organization which has provided scholarship grants,
tutoring services, and intensive educational opportunities to over 300
Hispanic families in the Washington, DC metropolitan area since its
inception. Dennis also worked with the March of Dimes national office
as the Manager of National Youth Programs and helped youth chapters
across the country raise $1.2M annually for the prevention of birth
defects and infant mortality. Dennis earned a BA from S.U.N.Y. @
Stonybrook and an MS from the Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Urban
Policy & Analysis - New School University.
Keanna King,
Site Operations Coordinator
Keanna King joins Year Up NYC as a transfer from Year Upís Cambridge facility as the Site Operations Coordinator. A native of Boston, MA, she is a graduate of Year Upís class of July 2004 and a recipient of the David E. Retik Award for Excellence. She apprenticed at State Street Research and later became a Year Up employee as the Office and Mentor Coordinator for the Cambridge site. Currently residing in Queens, Keanna plans to graduate from Cambridge College in the spring of 2007 with a BA in Psychology with hopes of attaining her Masters in Education
