Lucas Sánchez

Lucas Sánchez is the Co-Executive Director of New York Communities for Change, one of the largest community-based organizations in New York. Lucas was born in Pereira, Colombia and at age eight entered the United States with his family as an undocumented immigrant. His family settled in Englewood, New Jersey where he grew up. After graduating with a B.A. in Latino Studies from Columbia University, Lucas returned to Englewood where he worked as a Spanish teacher. While working as a teacher, Lucas began his organizing career by co-founding a community organization to provide free after-school tutoring services and organized the undocumented Latinx community in Englewood. Lucas subsequently worked as a legislative aide for the New Jersey State Assembly member representing his district. He then moved to New York City where he worked as a paralegal and freelance interpreter/translator while looking for an opportunity to work as a community organizer. That opportunity arrived in the summer of 2010 when he was hired by New York Communities for Change (NYCC). As a community organizer, Lucas was instrumental in driving a campaign, in partnership with Local 338 RWDSU, to successfully organize low-wage, undocumented supermarket workers in NYC to recover over a million dollars in stolen wages; winning union contracts for workers in six stores. At the same time, he co-organized NYCC’s first Workers Committee in Flatbush, Brooklyn and recruited students to launch NYCC’s first Community Education Program. In 2014 Lucas was named NYCC’s Long Island Director where he led campaigns to organize the residents of Brentwood to hold the town of Islip accountable for dumping thousands of tons of toxic material in a community park, elected NYCC members to the Hempstead Union Free School District's board of education, organized the community to bring reforms to one of New York’s lowest performing school districts, defended the rights of undocumented immigrants to access a public education, founded a community garden, and played a key role in bringing about a successful voting rights lawsuit on behalf of Latinx voters against the town of Islip. In 2018, he was promoted to Deputy Director and guided NYCC’s housing, decarceration, higher education, Long Island and political campaigns. This included running NYCC’s electoral work and representing NYCC on the Working Families Party’s Long Island and New York City Regional Advisory councils; and guiding NYCC’s participation within the following coalitions: Housing Justice for All, #FREEnewyork; Communities Not Cages; People’s Campaign for Parole Justice; No Price on Justice; Communities United for Police Reform; Long Island Social Justice Action Network; and the CUNY Rising Alliance. In June 2022, Lucas was promoted to NYCC Co-Executive Director. In 2020 and 2021 Lucas was named to City & State’s Long Island Power 100 list; PoliticsNY included NYCC and Lucas in its list of "Power Players in the 2022 Elections." Lucas currently lives on Long Island in the Village of Mineola with his partner and three children.