Jessica Yorko

for Lansing City Council - 4th Ward

Making a difference for Lansing - making a difference for you!

Official campaign website.

Jessica Yorko for City Council. Paid for by People for Jessica Yorko. Tim Kaltenbach, Treasurer.
815 Bancroft Court
Lansing, MI 48915

About Jessica

Jessica is a grassroots organizer and entrepreneur who specializes in advocacy campaigns, fundraising, events, and marketing & communication.

In 2004, Jessica started Sustainable Solutions, a company that provides grant research and writing, program development, and event planning services for Michigan environmental organizations. Sustainable Solutions has helped numerous organizations build capacity, get new programs off the ground, and grow existing programs.

Clients have included Michigan Interfaith Power and Light, West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Shepard Advisors, Sustainable Research Group, Recycle Ann Arbor, and others. In the Lansing area, Jessica has worked closely with the Mid-Michigan Environmental Action Council, where she has developed the Smart Commute, Volunteer Stream Monitoring, and Walking and Bicycling Task Force programs, and lead grassroots environmental advocacy projects, like the Michigan Avenue Rain Garden campaign. (pictured above)

Most recently, Jessica led the Lansing Complete Streets Ordinance campaign as one of 90 volunteers who collected more than 5,000 signatures to make Lansing an accessible and walk-and-bike friendly city. The Ordinance was adopted unanimously by the Lansing City Council in August 2009!

Driven by her passion and interest in urban revitalization and creating walkable destinations in Lansing, Jessica also took on the position of Program Manager for the NorthWest Initiative’s Westside Commercial Association in 2006. In that capacity, she works with business and property owners, residents, and city and state officials to improve blighted areas along Saginaw Street on Lansing’s Westside. This work includes everything from workshops and assistance for businesses to the Westside Summer Fest to mobilizing residents to advocate for traffic changes along Saginaw Street.

Jessica is also Co-Chair of the Lansing Walking & Bicycling Task Force and a member of the Lansing Public Service Board. In recent years, Jessica served on the Northwest Lansing Food Security Committee, Mayor Bernero’s Transition Team on the Environment, and the Ingham County Land Use and Health Team.

Between graduating from Kalamazoo College in 2000 with a BA in Economics and Environmental Studies and starting Sustainable Solutions in 2004, Jessica spent four years with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, first as a Financial Analyst and later as a Marketing and Partnership Coordinator.

Jessica’s unique style of leadership comes from her ability to combine passion and vision with team-building, organization and planning, and a real understanding of obstacles and assets to creating change.

Jessica is the mother of 6-year old Nicholas, who has
been flyering and organizing volunteers alongside his mom since birth!

Nick also loves dogs & other animals, sports of all kinds, rollerblading, bicycling, climbing, fishing, and making artwork. And of course, ice cream.

Jessica was born near Gary, Indiana.

Leadership

In 2008, Jessica was honored as one of Lansing's "Top 10 Over the Next 10", an annual award that recognizes "ten successful, young professionals as people to watch over the next ten years".

Click here to read the full article in the November 2008 Greater Lansing Business Monthly.

Favorite Quotes

"… the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands say this has nothing to do with me I just want to live as comfortably as I can

you got to look outside your eyes
you got to think outside your brain you got to walk outside you life to where the neighborhood changes...

you've got your whole life to do something and that's not very long"

-- Ani Difranco, Willing to Fight

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privelege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of spledid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Jessica in the news:

May 2009

http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/features/wegt0318.aspx

March 2009 http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lansing/article-2706-hit-the-pavement_.html

March 2009

http://noise.typepad.com/boot_bike_bus/2009/03/is-lansing-progressing-toward-possibly-progressive.html

March 2009

http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/devnews/taco0309.aspx

November 2008

http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/innovationnews/west0245.aspx

October 2008