Danielle LeBlanc: Co-op Developer
Danielle LeBlanc is invested in promoting financial inclusion, entrepreneurship and community development. Currently, she consults with small businesses, start-ups and nonprofits on such matters as marketing and proposal development. She worked at the microfinance nonprofit, Grameen America for 4 years as a fundraiser and project manager. Danielle’s first encounter with microfinance was when she did an analysis of microfinance provision in the Philippines for Catholic Relief Services. At LISC, Ms. LeBlanc provided capital loans to nonprofit organizations. She also managed a grant program for capacity building and capital projects while at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone.
Ms. LeBlanc has a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University. She is a 2010 Leadership Newark Fellow. Danielle was deployed as a Red Cross volunteer to Gulfport, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina and served as a volunteer disaster responder for four years.
Ysanet Batista: Co-op Academy Teaching Assistant
Ysanet Batista is a queer Afro-Dominican chef, farmer, community organizer, writer, and educator born in NYC and raised in between the Dominican Republic and Florida.
She graduated from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI and spent a couple of years working in major hotel companies before transitioning to community-based work.
Today, she lives and works in NYC as the chef and worker-owner of Woke Foods, a women-owned cooperative that taps into the healing traditions of Dominican food. Ysanet is currently earning a certificate in Urban Agriculture at Farm School NYC.
Zahra Chevannes - Development Coordinator
Zahra is a Caribbean, Brooklyn-born, Bronx resident committed to serving Black, brown, immigrant and queer communities in NYC.
Before joining Green Worker Cooperatives, Zahra worked in development at the Community Development Project (2016-2018) and served as a Peace Corps Education Volunteer in rural China (2014-2016).
Zahra believes in the power of community, collectivity and cooperative economics, and takes a unique, holistic approach to development and fundraising in the nonprofit sector. While interning at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Zahra explored the intersections of Diasporic art, fundraising, advocacy and visual dialogue.
She is currently a member of Black Youth Project 100 planning and organizing for the liberation for Black people. Zahra practices healing and self-care by drinking tea, walking and carving out space for yoga. She graduated from Cornell University in 2013 with a degree in psychology and art history.