Meet Melissa, a Puerto Rican mama who loves the Bronx and her community. Rooted in family, joy, and deep care, she brings her whole heart to her work as a program manager at the LeadersTrust. She creates spaces where leaders can show up fully—messy, human, brilliant, and able to speak in their native language. For Melissa, this way of caring for others prevents burnout and centers what truly matters: wholeness and authenticity. When our leaders are well, so are our movements.
Maria: Hello Melissa! So excited to finally have this conversation with you. Tell me a little bit about you, how you come into this world. Who are you?
Melissa: Who am I? Wow, what a big question! Well, first, I’m a Mama from the Bronx. I’m Puerto Rican, more specifically NuyoRican, and that very much informs how I see community and show up for people. The power of being deeply rooted in the Bronx is mad important to me. I’m deeply invested in its growth, its safety and its healing, because I’m raising my family here. Legit being from the Bronx AND Nuyorican are some of my favorite things about me! There’s such a deep history of organizing, of resistance, and mad joy.
Being a mama at a young age shaped everything as well. I stepped into youth work without any formal training but my lived experiences as a young person navigating hard things. I knew what it felt like to need support and not get it. So I decided to be what I never got: the person who could say the words I wished I’d heard, and create spaces where young people could dream. That desire to see people fully and help them thrive still drives me today.
I am also someone who honors my mom and my grandmother– Bienvenida Acevedo Camacho every chance I get. She grew up mad poor, didn’t go to school, but raised 10 children while caring for her community, embodying what so many of us who grew up with limited resources know: we rely on our tías, our primas, our neighbors, not the system, to care for us, to heal us. My grandma showed me what’s possible with guts, grit and mad love for people and their wellbeing. I always say that my first organizing principles came from her.
She was able to really see people and to care for communities in ways that the system doesn’t teach us , but was just in her, and in us as a people. Everyone on the block was welcomed in my grandma’s house (Bienvenida also means welcome in Spanish). It’s like, food was ready, and if it wasn’t ready, it would get ready. And so that gift of taking care of people and welcoming them just as they are, that’s who I am and who I always strive to be.
Maria: Thank you Melissa for sharing this part of your story with us. Can you share about what brought you to the LeadersTrust?
Melissa: So, prior to the LeadersTrust, I was at a national reproductive health organization for 8 years, leading a youth program that engaged NYC youth around youth advocacy, sexuality education work and community organizing. I really loved working with young people.. That’s a whole other world of joy, and difficulty.
It is the kind of work that can be so rewarding and also very draining and oftentimes under-resourced on mad levels. There weren’t a lot of spaces, especially at work where we took care of ourselves. So, the external work that we were doing with young people was mad dope, but I didn’t experience being taken care of as, as a whole person.
Eventually I became burnt out and depressed and when I lost that job during the pandemic, it took 2 years of a recovery period to begin to feel whole again. During that time I began manifesting a place where I can show up fully, a place where I had the work/life balance I always wanted so I can be the mom I’ve always wanted to be, the daughter, the partner, the coworker –all of it.
I wanted a place where I can be a better version of me and still pour into the communities I care about. And then I found the LeadersTrust, and got to meet all these dope people and do all this incredible work. I feel mad honored to be here and that I get to support so many amazing leaders!
Maria: What’s inspiring you right now as you do this work with movement leaders?
Melissa: Shit is mad hard for our people right now. More and more we are finding it difficult to carve out time to just breathe.I love creating spaceswhere leaders can just show up and pause for a minute to receive some type of care. Spaces where that care is not an afterthought but intentional and they feel it from jump with us. This is at the heart of my work, creating a vibe where people feel completely welcomed, seen and respected no matter the moment we are meeting them in.
Because we are all dealing with some really tough realities right now. Being able to just show up in that: ‘hey, today I’m heartbroken, or today I’m sad, but I’m here, and I wanna be here with you.’ And there’s something, even in that heartbreak, that I can offer. That’s what’s inspiring me.
I’ve always wanted to feel seen and understood with all of my messiness. I encourage people to show up as they truly are. To bring their joy, pain, their rage. That has helped me build more genuine connections, trust and deeper relationships with leaders, our coaches, our funding partners and staff. Honestly, I have seen how a simple icebreaker like “60 seconds talk yo shit” can shift people’s vibe in a meeting, and we’ve been able to go much deeper and further together.
Maria: I’ve seen how amazing you are at creating these welcoming spaces, like your grandma Bienvenida. Can you share an example of how that’s impacted a leader or organization that you’ve accompanied?
Melissa: Yes! Not long ago, I offered a renewal call in Spanish for a leader whose first language is Spanish but who up until that point met with us in English because she thought that was her only option. The moment we shifted languages, something changed- her answers became deeper, so much more poetic, and more heartfelt. She said, “Spanish is the language of my heart and of my people. This is how I want to talk about this work… it made the world of a difference to speak in the language that feels like home.”
That’s what language justice is and I am so honored to lead on this work here. It’s not an extra or a nice add on to our program–it’s what makes it possible for leaders to share their experiences more authentically with us while strengthening the impact of our work together. It’s also deeply personal for me. Growing up Nuyorican, Spanish was my first language. English eventually became dominant once I entered school, but some of my most joyful memories are with my grandma, who never spoke or understood English. Those conversations with her are what root me in this work. It has always been a dream to do more in Spanish, and now being able to support and lead in this way has been transformational on so many levels, for me personally, for the leaders I work with, and for our organization as we deepen our equity practices. The joy comes from my own history and my deep desire for people to be able to express themselves in whatever way feels most real for them.
That’s one of the beautiful things about the LeadersTrust: we experiment, we try things, we stretch. Recently, I also got to work on a leadership development series with a few of our Capacity Coaches called Sustenance Season that was made possible thanks to a new partnership with Blue Shield of California. The purpose of the series was to support worker rights leaders in California to slow down, reflect, care for their personal and collective wellbeing, build relationships with one another, and ground in learning related to resource mobilization, wellbeing, & generational long-arc strategy. And we got to offer this in Spanish and English, which made it even more dope!
Maria: Yes, I can’t wait to hear more about Sustenance Season Melissa. I can really sense that it was deep and moving. I can also see that this is your jam! Your mero mole like we say in Mexico!
Before we close, can you share your call to action. What’s the message you want folks to remember?
Melissa: Yes. At the core of my work is profound care for community, realness, and showing up as our whole selves. Without that, our movements cannot endure. If our leaders aren’t well… if we aren’t whole, no strategy can sustain or save us.