Meet Grace

Grace Lee is a community organizer, small business owner, daughter of immigrants, mom to three children, and a long-time resident of Lower Manhattan. She is a progressive running for State Assembly who has a proven record of getting things done for our communities. She will fight to ensure our children have a safe and quality education, our families have a livable and affordable place to call home, and small businesses will recover and thrive in this post-pandemic world.

Grace co-founded Children First, a parent-led coalition fighting for the safe clean-up of a toxic mercury site located in the South Street Seaport that puts thousands of children and residents at risk of exposure. By holding rallies, press conferences, and organizing folks to testify, Grace and her fellow parents slowed down the process and held the developer accountable to ensure our communities can breathe safe, clean air.

Grace has also worked closely with deaf tenants who live in deplorable conditions on Forsyth Street. She helped them stand up to their building’s management and accompanied them to get their vaccines. Grace has also partnered with Vision Urbana to organize the largest Thanksgiving drive in Lower Manhattan, donating and delivering thousands of turkeys and chicken to families and seniors in NYCHA housing.

Grace will legislate from the ground up. She will be on the ground of every neighborhood doing the hard work and heavy lifting to get our communities the resources we need to be safe, healthy, and strong as we continue to battle this pandemic and prepare for the climate crisis. She will work closely with communities to identify problems that are specific to neighborhoods and tenants, and she will introduce legislation to address those problems head-on.

Grace was in Manhattan when the towers fell. She was a young mother in Zone A when Superstorm Sandy hit and was temporarily displaced from her building when it flooded. Like tens of thousands of other parents, she oversaw her children’s virtual learning, worked from home in her closet, and even got very sick from COVID. However, through it all, Grace chose to stay and help build up our communities. It is with that spirit of service and love for Lower Manhattan that Grace will bring to work as your representative in Albany.