Lilah Mejia

Lilah Mejia is a Puerto Rican community organizer, emergency management professional, and bridge-builder born and raised in the Jacob Riis Houses in the Lower East Side. Known for her deep community roots, bold leadership, and unwavering social justice lens, she has dedicated her life to building systems of care, safety, and resilience for the communities that shaped her. Lilah is widely recognized across New York City as someone who not only shows up in moments of crisis, but someone who organizes, mobilizes, and builds long after the cameras are gone. Lilah currently serves as the Outreach & Engagement Manager for NYDIS’ Elements House Clubhouse, where she helps bring the international clubhouse model to the Lower East Side creating a healing, community-centered space for individuals navigating mental health challenges. She also worked as the Director of Outreach for the NYC Commission to Strengthen Local Democracy, where she led community engagement around civic power, budget transparency, and participatory governance. Her leadership has been shaped by years of organizing on the ground, particularly following major disasters. After Hurricane Maria, Lilah was hired to lead recovery efforts for New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS), where she brought her lived experience, cultural competency, and social justice perspective to the forefront of the city’s response. As a Puerto Rican woman with direct ties to the island, her work became personal standing alongside displaced families, advocating for their rights, and navigating the failures of federal and state systems with compassion and clarity. Her on-the-ground leadership made her a trusted voice for thousands of survivors struggling through a colonial, bureaucratic, inequitable recovery. Across her career, Lilah has championed initiatives that address food insecurity, housing instability, and community wellness. She is the founder of Bout My Community, an emerging nonprofit rooted in mutual aid principles and community-driven solutions. She created the Community Fridge Program in District 1, in partnership with GOLES placing refrigerators inside public schools to ensure children and families have access to healthy food daily. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she secured emergency funding and coordinated mass food distributions that fed over thousands of Lower East Side and Bronx residents. Lilah’s advocacy also extends to environmental justice and climate resilience. She successfully fought for and secured $350 million for the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (ESCR), helping protect NYCHA residents and low-income communities from future storms. Her work exemplifies how community voice must lead government planning especially in neighborhoods historically overlooked or underfunded. A cultural worker and storyteller at heart, Lilah is also the organizer behind the neighborhood’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade and Festival celebrating Boricua joy, resistance, and heritage. She is known for weaving together activists, artists, parents, youth, elders, clergy, and policymakers often serving as the bridge that connects community members to the resources, organizations, and opportunities that transform lives. Lilah just completed her graduate studies in Emergency Management, building on her Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies. With training in disaster response, risk management, humanitarian standards, and crisis communication, she integrates academic knowledge with real-world organizing experience creating a unique leadership voice rarely seen inside emergency management, but desperately needed. Above all, Lilah is a mother of six, a proud Latina, a community advocate shaped by Loisaida, and a woman who believes that every family deserves safety, dignity, and access to opportunity. Whether she is hosting a community meeting, coordinating disaster relief, supporting mental health programming, or walking the blocks of the Lower East Side,