Jonathan Alvarez is President & Chief Executive Officer of 914United Inc., a 501 (3)(c) nonprofit organization he co-founded and incorporated in 2020, offering programs and mentoring for at-risk, justice-impacted youth in Westchester County. His mission: reduce recidivism and youth incarceration rates while supporting the reentry population one person at a time. Jonathan’s inspiration for starting a relationship-centered organization with one-on-one case management services was his thirteen-year incarceration experience. He describes it as transformative. “I didn’t just serve prison time,” he has said, “I made prison time serve me.” Upon his release, he sought to compose a new life story to repair the harm that crime and conflict had caused in his life. In 2020 he was chosen to be an Elias Foundation Community Activist Fellow to support his leadership in one of the Hudson Valley’s communities hardest hit by injustice and inequality. A year later he helped found the Youth Leadership Initiative, offering seminars on leadership, financial literacy and civic empowerment. In 2023 914United expanded its reach by participating in the Yonkers chapter of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance established by President Obama to address persistent opportunity gaps facing boys and young men of color preventing them from realizing their fullest potential. The Yonkers initiative was recognized as one of the nation’s top four model communities. Jonathan later joined the Yonkers Family YMCA SNUG Project to combat gun violence. Jonathan earned his BA in Social Studies from Bard College and is pursuing an Executive Master of Public Education degree at CUNY – Baruch College.