Organizers

James Pearlstein
Co-Lead Organizer

James Pearlstein serves as the Co-Lead Organizer at VOICE, working primarily in the Prince William County area.

James previously organized with VOICE’s sister organizations in the Washington, DC area and in Cleveland, Ohio.

James has helped spearhead campaigns to build a new $2 million community park and increase government investment into housing for homeless youth by $3 million in Washington, DC and helped build Maryland’s largest after-school and parent organizing program in Montgomery County. In Ohio, James helped win significant criminal justice reforms in Cuyahoga County, including the creation of the county’s first-ever Civil Rights Division within the prosecutor’s office, one of only three such offices around the country, as well as a new summer school for youth incarcerated in the county’s juvenile detention facility. 

Prior to becoming an organizer, James spent 10 years as a frontline youth worker in a community-based organization that served young people from DC’s Barry Farm public housing neighborhood.

Jessica Sarriot
Co-Lead Organizer

Jessica Sarriot serves as the Co-Lead Organizer at VOICE, working primarily in the Alexandria area.

Jessica organized with VOICE back in 2013 and has over ten years of experience managing campaigns and programs within the nonprofit and government sectors. 

Jessica is a French-American woman raised internationally. She has a bachelors in Peace Building from Eastern Mennonite University where she led student organizing efforts around just investment policies. She spent two years through the Mennonite Central Committee supporting grassroots political and theological education and organizing efforts with a network of 12 churches in Medellin, Colombia, including supporting the network’s first public march for peace with over 400 participants. Jessica is fluent in Spanish and French. 

As an organizer at VOICE Jessica helped spearhead passage of the Arlington County Affordable Housing Master Plan as well as VOICE’s first three-day Get Out the Vote campaign leading to 12% and 24% increases in voter turn-out in two target precincts and increased power for VOICE. She also helped identify and train the teachers and parent leaders needed to launch the Child First campaign at South Lake Elementary School as part of a county-wide parent organizing program. 

While earning her Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University Jessica co-founded the Organizing Praxis Lab with a fellow organizer that provided training and education to students and the community around various organizing models and strategies. 

Prior to rejoining VOICE as Co-Lead, Jessica spent five years in LA county’s Department of Health Services leading the LA Free the Vote initiative to expand voter education and registration for people with convictions and helping develop and implement health and employment programs for people impacted by the criminal legal system. She was pivotal to launching in-person voting in LA County jails and training over 800 county staff on voter registration, securing $40 million in state funding for reentry services, implementing salary floors for frontline workers contracted for reentry employment programs, and improving Fair Chance Hiring policies in the county.

Rev. Kenneth Nixon
Senior Organizer

Rev. Kenneth Nixon serves as an Associate Organizer at VOICE, working primarily in Fairfax County. He also serves as the Social Justice & Outreach Pastor at First Baptist Church of Manassas.

Before Rev. Nixon became a full-time VOICE organizer, he had been an active VOICE clergy leader within VOICE for 10 years and had also served on the VOICE Strategy Team. As a leader, he was a part of successful campaigns to build a Public Defender’s Office in Prince William County, eliminate Virginia’s practice of suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court debt, and win $3.4 million in new funding to support low-income families in the Prince William public schools.

Prior to joining VOICE in 2021 Rev. Nixon worked for 15 years in the private sector as a technology executive.

Loren DePina
Associate Organizer

Loren DePina serves as an Associate Organizer at VOICE, working primarily in Arlington. 

Outside of VOICE, Loren is extremely active in her own community, advocating for better treatment and resources in marginalized communities.

In the wake of George Floyd’s assassination, Loren began by attending town hall meetings and calling out the behavior of the police. From there she started a Residents Safety Committee, hosting monthly meetings with the community and the police department. This committee has been very successful in building a positive relationship between the two groups. In addition, Loren is a member of the Sheriffs Board and PTA, and works as a volunteer, mentoring African American and Latina girls. 

A first-generation American, Loren’s parents are from Cape Verde. She speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Criollo (a dialect spoken in Cape Verde Islands). She lives in Alexandria with her husband and two sons. She enjoys cooking, traveling, reading, and spending time with her family (she has 38 first cousins on her father’s side!).

Staff

Edward Layman
Operations Manager

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