SJCO Alumni are AMAZING
SJCO Alumni are working day in and day out for positive social change in CLT. You will find them organizing events and community meetings, speaking at city council meetings, furnishing apartments for people needing homes, running kids around for services and so much more.
Here’s where we lift up alumni work and celebrate their wins.
2025
New York
The Atlast Project →
James Lee III is a co-founder and alumni of the SJCO certification and has been with the program since the idea was born. He serves as a leadership team member and community outreach and development manager.
“I always want to help others. Working with the Social Justice & Community Organizing Certification for the last three years has been exciting. Being founder and owner of James Lee and Associates has allowed me to collaborate with organizations and agencies that focuses on those most in need. As a community advisor, and advocate has given me an opportunity to be supportive of those who need for their voices to be in the circles of influence. While working with the Foundation for the Carolinas, United Way, Built For Zero, RESULTS National and Mecklenburg County, I have had that opportunity, to speak for those that need my voice.
"A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr.
"A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr.
2025
New York
The Atlast Project →
Judith Elise Brown is a year one alumni and beloved “Alumni Wrangler” who nurtures our alumni with care and connection as needed.
Judith became an advocate while raising her two sons, both of whom are on the autism spectrum. While supporting her children, she became her own self-advocate in her personal disability journey. During this time, Judith began to help other parents with IEP/504 meetings and their search for medical professionals, eventually training to become a Parent Advocate.
After relocating to Charlotte and raising her sons to adulthood, Judith founded Project 70Forward, a nonprofit organization for the support and advancement of people with disabilities. Within this work, Judith provides a web of coordinated person-focused care to individuals and families dealing with disabilities. Additionally, Judith works with neighborhood, faith-.based and community organizations to create space for civic and community engagement events that touch over 20 neighborhoods in Charlotte.
Also during her time in Charlotte, Judith has become a facilitator for the Abilities Leadership Program of North Carolina: an advocacy training program for leaders with I/DD and their allies. She is a Housing Advocate and a Housing Narrative Storyteller through The Kelsey, an accessible housing advocacy group in California. She presently sits on the Community Council for the Center for Digital Equity as the co-chair of the Policy, Advocacy and Ecosystems Workstream. She also sits on the Parent Advisory Board at the National Research Center for Parents With Disabilities The Heller School for Social Policy and Management housed at Brandeis University. She is part of the alumni network for the certificate class of Social Justice and Community Organizing out of Queens University, a frequent panelists for the state’s International Visitors Learning Program and is a founding member of the state-wide chapter of REVUP NC, a national awareness initiative for voters with disabilities.
In 2025, Project 70Forward was accepted into the first year of the Unite Charlotte initiative with the United Way of Greater Charlotte and Judith has become a graduate of Duke University’s Nonprofit Management – Intensive Track.
Send Us Your Win to Celebrate!
Use this quick form to share some of your wins in your organizing with the community! We will post here as well as on our socials.