Yvette Thierry is a Native of New Orleans. She is Director of Community Organizing at Safe Streets-Strong Communities where she manages community base-building and peer advocacy. Prior to joining the Safe Streets staff, she worked in healthcare management for over fifteen years. Yvette became a Safe Streets member in June 2006, seeking justice for the May 2006 killing of her mentally ill brother-in-law by the New Orleans Police Department. She became a leader of membership and joined the staff as an organizer in February 2008.

Robert Goodman (nicknamed The Dean for his leadership abilities) became involved with Safe Streets / Strong Communities shortly after his mentally disabled brother was killed by NOPD in 2006. Beneath Roberts color coordinated outfits and matching baseball caps lay visible scars; remnants of his firsthand experiences with police brutality and a harsh prison system.

Robert taught himself how to read while in prison. He devoured books that gave him a historical and political perspective of the criminal justice issues that his community faced. He also discovered his gifts as an organizer while in prison and when he was released he began organizing demonstrations and circulating petitions demanding better treatment and living conditions for prisoners. He joined Safe Streets/Strong Communities after his brother'd5s death in 2006 where he became a key educator and organizer of the people of his community to fight for reform of New Orleans notoriously biased and corrupt criminal justice system.

Robert is also an active member of the New Orleans Organizers'd5 Round Table and Black Men United and a 2007-2010 New Voices Fellow. "I'm so grateful to the program and to all the other fellows who inspire me each and every day," he says, "I would do this work for nothing, but to get financial and emotional support for it to help me sustain myself... it's like Christmas everyday."