Meet the Team
Conózcanos
Meet Our Board
Our board is a collective of local community organizers and community residents who grew up or currently live and or work in Lincoln Heights. Motivated by the resilience and power growing within community spaces of Lincoln Heights, we founded this organization in 2024 to serve our community’s low—income, immigrant, and long-term residents and to protect our community’s autonomy and identity.
Diego J. Zapata
President & Co-Founder
Born and raised in the Eastside, Diego grew up in a working-class family and was intimately shaped by Lincoln Heights’ culture and environment. As a young boy, he always kept seeds in his pockets and flowers in his hands, and with age has continued to find ways to protect and steward life in his community. Since high school, Diego has worked on community-based greening projects, open space preservation, affordable housing protections, and anti-gentrification + anti-displacement work at various scales. He is determined to leverage this organization to protect a Lincoln Heights that has afforded him a chosen family, opportunities to learn and grow, and an identity built on the resiliency he has witnessed in every seed, street, and soul of Lincoln Heights.
Vice-President & Co-Founder
Fernanda Sanchez
Born and raised in Lincoln Heights, Fernanda Sanchez is a dedicated advocate and prominent leader in the fight against gentrification and cultural displacement in Lincoln Heights. With deep roots in Lincoln Heights and El Sereno, Fernanda has devoted her life to championing environmental justice, tenant rights, and immigrant rights throughout Los Angeles.
As a passionate community organizer, Fernanda has been integral in shaping tenant rights policies across the city as a member of the Right to Counsel Coalition, ensuring protections for vulnerable communities while documenting the displacement affecting neighborhoods like her own. Her tireless work reflects her commitment to preserving the cultural integrity of Los Angeles and advancing justice for all. Fernanda’s academic background is rooted in the philosophy of law and society, with a concentration in nonviolence studies—a foundation that informs her holistic and compassionate approach to advocacy. She further honed her skills and deepened her commitment to transformative justice as part of the 2023 Juvenile Justice Learning Through Restorative Youth (LTRY) Cohort, where she trained under the visionary Miriame Kaba, and Kelly Hayes.
Fernanda Sanchez’s unwavering dedication to equity and her bold leadership make her an invaluable voice for progress and justice in the city she calls home.
Rene Camarillo
Treasurer & Co-Founder
Rene Camarillo is an East Los Angeles born and raised textile and garment creative who has actively been involved in bettering his neighboring communities. While growing up in his hometown of El Sereno, Rene has volunteered and dedicated over seven years of community art and craft programming, operating and offering free apparel design classes through collaboration with different Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Centers throughout El Sereno, Lincoln Heights, and Boyle Heights. Camarillo has earned a Certificate of Community Appreciation, by the City of Los Angeles in 2018 as well as a Certificate of Recognition, from the District 14 California Legislature Assembly in 2014. Most recently, Rene Camarillo has become a recipient of the prestigious Society of Presidential Fellows Award granted by the Rhode Island School of Design where through his textile work, examines the tapestry of East Los Angeles and what he curiously describes as “Unseen Rituals”. Rene Camarillo prioritizes community involvement through the arts and aims to uplift and motivate the youth in East Los Angeles to cultivate and pursue careers in the arts.
Alumni of El Sereno Elementary, El Sereno Middle School, Woodrow Wilson High School, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, California State University of Los Angeles, and Rhode Island School of Design.
Interim Secretary & Co-Founder
Hannya Ortiz
Hannya grew up in nearby Echo Park before bring displaced as her community rapidly gentrified. Her family ended up making a home in Lincoln Heights, and she found deep refuge in the similarities between Lincoln Heights and the largely pre-gentrification Echo Park community: their vibrant Latino community, their adjacency to large open spaces, and their deep histories. Compelled to protect Lincoln Heights and other communities from the traumas she experienced with gentrification, Hannya pursued a BA in Urban Planning from California State University Northridge, where she studied transportation justice. She later found a new career pathway in urban greening, conservation, and K-12 education as a local land steward working on stewarding the local biodiversity of Northeast LA’s open spaces. She is now developing a local native plant nursery with Anahuacalmecac International Baccalaureate World School at the Chief Ya'anna Learning Village & Tuatukar Eco-Cultural Center in Monterrey Hills.
Board Member & Co-Founder
Melany Guzman
Melany is a lifelong resident of Lincoln Heights. Her experience working in habitat restoration/land stewardship has driven her to work towards ensuring existing open spaces in Lincoln Heights and East LA are preserved and accessible to everyone in the community. However, having witnessed firsthand how rapid urbanization and displacement affect the environment and culture within her community, Melany is determined to uplift and empower the voices of those usually overlooked in communities like Lincoln Heights.
Noemí Mendez-Colon
Board Member
Born, raised, and based in Northeast Los Angeles, Noemí is a creator, curator, and advocate shaped and sustained by Lincoln Heights. Raised in a working-class immigrant household, her connection to community organizing, environmental justice, and mutual aid is deeply personal and intergenerational. This foundation grounds her commitment to collective liberation through creative engagement.
Noemí earned her degree in Art with a concentration in Fashion, Fibers, and Materials from California State University, Los Angeles, and completed additional training in Fashion Design and Historical Costume Making at Pasadena City College. Through her interdisciplinary practice, she weaves together research, culture, and imagination to create wearable art and garments that center storytelling, resistance, and community memory.
She has served as a board member in school clubs and advocacy organizations and has participated as a panelist on arts and activism. Across these roles, Noemí is dedicated to cultivating spaces that bridge art, advocacy, and public dialogue. Her work explores identity, labor, land, and lineage while examining systems of power and transformation.
As a member of the Board of Directors, Noemí supports the development of community-based programming, environmental justice initiatives, and mutual aid networks. She brings a systems-oriented and creative lens to organizing, believing that cultural work and grassroots leadership are essential to building equitable, thriving neighborhoods. She is committed to strengthening community infrastructure in Lincoln Heights and advancing collective strategies that honor culture, dignity, and self-determination.
Alumna of Montecito Heights Preschool, Latona Avenue Elementary School, Arroyo Seco Museum Science Magnet, Bravo Medical Magnet High School, Los Angeles Trade–Technical College, Pasadena City College, and California State University, Los Angeles
Paola Melena
Board Member
Paola is a doctoral student pursuing an Ed.D. in Leadership with a concentration in Higher Education. Her work bridges leadership theory and real-world practice, with a focus on student success, organizational leadership, and leading virtual teams in online higher education environments. She is particularly interested in how institutions can create more equitable systems that expand access and improve long-term educational outcomes for historically underrepresented students.
In addition to her academic work, Paola broadcasts a higher education–focused segment on KQBH 101.5 FM community radio, serving the Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights communities. Through this platform, she shares accessible information about college pathways, financial aid, scholarships, and academic resources, helping demystify higher education for local students and families. She believes deeply in equal access to higher education regardless of background, ethnicity, or lived experience.
Paola is passionate about contributing to the development of strategic programming and a higher education–focused community resource hub that increases awareness, access, and sustained academic success. Her vision centers on building infrastructure that supports students not only in reaching college, but in thriving once they arrive.
As a new board member, Paola is committed to serving the community through collaboration, thoughtful leadership, and long-term impact. Having grown up in Lincoln Heights for most of her childhood, she holds many meaningful memories there and is dedicated to investing in the future of the neighborhood that helped shape her.
Previous Board Members
We believe in collective stewardship. GROW Lincoln Heights has been shaped by many hands, including former board members whose service continues to inform our work. We are grateful to the individuals who have served in leadership and who helped shape GROW Lincoln Heights to protect and defend our community.
Johanna Iraheta
Former Secretary & Co-Founder
2022-2025
Johanna Iraheta is a multidisciplinary community organizer who aims to create avenues that protect the rights, safety, and access of communities affected by inequity. Johanna has worked alongside many organizations, art initiatives, and educational programs that support community organizing, mental health wellness, and youth empowerment. Johanna has recently worked in community garden stewardship, green space advocacy, and open space programs.
Johanna holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California and a B.A. from California State Northridge. Johanna is also a certified Wilderness and Outdoors Educator from the Diverse Outdoors Leadership Institute and is a certified League of American Cyclists instructor.