Dear Friend,

It is with great excitment that I introduce two new members of the DC JWJ team to you! Eric Butler is our new Data and Communications Organizer and Damiana Dendy is our new Housing Organizer. Each of them come with a wealth of knowledge, passion, and ideas for our work. Both have organized locally and we hope you get to work with each of them soon! Please join us in welcoming Eric and Damiana.

Nadia

Damiana is a tenant and labor organizer living in Washington DC. Damiana has experience leading protests with Black Lives Matter in college, organizing and researching within the food service and hospitality industry for UNITE HERE, organizing on the job at Amazon, and organizing tenants to advocate for rights and protections. In addition to their passion for organizing, Damiana also loves creating drawings, paintings, and sculptures--often having to do with organizing--in their free time.

You can reach Damiana at [email protected].

Eric a local activist, entrepreneur and artist. He graduated from Archbishop Carroll High School and attended the University of Maryland, College Park as well as North Carolina A & T State University. He worked in the Federal Government managing tech and property procurement and drtribution at the National Institutes of Health and had a Management Trainee rotation at Department of the Interior's, Bureau of Land Management. After college, he became one of the original team members of D.C. media firm/outlet, JukeBOXDC. After contributing to JukeBOXDC's startup, Eric pivoted into politics. Since 2014, he has been working in D.C.'s space for Ballot Initiatives and Referendum; acting as the petition "Data Guy" for i71, i76, i77, Referendum 008 as Director/Data for the recent Decriminalize Nature Campaign (Initiative 82). As a long time biker, Eric decided to apply this method to culture in 2018. He drafted the Non-Traditional Vehicles act of 2018 as Chair of D.C. Bike Life Campaign in an attempt to move the District to reclassify Dirt Bike and ATV use from a criminal misdemeanor to a decriminalized traffic offense. His first protest was a grow out at Archbishop Carroll in a successful effort to oppose a conservative hair grooming policy for young black men who were Carrol Lions. To oppose this policy these young men would grow their hair until the school suspended them, then repeat the process. The policy only lasted 2 years. Today, he's a dedicated member of DC Jobs With Justice, managing data and social media.

You can reach Eric at [email protected].