Joshua Mandelbaum, Executive Director

Joshua Mandelbaum, Executive Director, joined 826NYC in July 2013. He has over 16 years of nonprofit experience, including serving as Advertising Director of Poets & Writers and Executive Director of Words without Borders. In addition, Joshua served as editor and publisher of the literary magazine Ballyhoo Stories.

Photo by Aslan Chalom.

Director of Education

Alana Benoit is a writer and poet with extensive experience in nonprofit management, arts education, and youth development. She has worked with prominent cultural arts institutions such as the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Brooklyn Children’s Museum and The Harlem School of the Arts. Alana holds a BA from Union College and MA from the English University of York. She is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at Brooklyn College.

Photo by Aslan Chalom

Liz Levine, Volunteer & Programs Manager

Liz joined 826NYC in August 2014 after graduating with a BA in Writing and Politics. Before becoming the Volunteer & Programs Manager, she also wrote grants and tweets, planned and executed fundraising events, and ran workshops and after-school programming at the Williamsburg tutoring site. She now runs the volunteer program and the Park Slope tutoring location for 826NYC, while still harboring dreams of opening her own literature-themed sandwich shop.

Photo by Aslan Chalom.

Aarti Monteiro, Writers' Room Coordinator

Aarti Monteiro comes to 826NYC with a background in writing and education. Before joining the team, she taught at an extended learning time program at a Brooklyn middle school and coordinated a writing and mentoring program. She has an MFA in Fiction from Rutgers University-Newark, and has received writing fellowships from VCCA and VONA/Voices. As the Writers’ Room Coordinator, she develops writing projects to support what students at PS/MS 7 are learning in school.

Photo by Aslan Chalom.

Chris Eckert, Store Manager

Chris joined 826NYC as Store Manager in 2016, after a decade of volunteering in the store, in the education programs, and in the capacity of someone who was willing to blow up 200 balloons or get hit in the head with a steel chair for a student’s film. When he is not managing BSSCo. he tutors, writes, and strives to straddle the fine line between curating and hoarding regarding a personal library. Those are his actual glasses.

Brancey Mora, After-School Tutoring Programs Coordinator

Brancey Mora first joined 826NYC in 2015 as a volunteer doing field trips and after-school tutoring. Before joining the team in August 2016, she worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA and the Whitney Museum, where she assisted with group visits and programming. Brancey loves reading, drawing, and the strange and unusual. While not running the Williamsburg tutoring location for 826NYC, she also solves mundane crimes and investigates theories of time travel via the G train.

Photo by Aslan Chalom.

Nico Garbaccio, Field Trips Coordinator

Nico Garbaccio has been part of the 826NYC community since 2014, originally as volunteer and an intern, and then joining the staff in August 2016. He worked as a sportswriter and as a middle school English teacher before finding his niche in nonprofit education. He considers himself to be just a big kid with facial hair, which is his main superpower for leading a group of rowdy third graders on a storytelling adventure. Aside from helping to oversee our always-lively field trips program, Nico manages the booking and hosting of birthday parties and community events in our space.

Field Trip and Paid Programming Coordinator

Lily Zaballos first encountered 826 as an intern at 826Valencia as a teen. She joined the 826NYC community as a volunteer in early 2017. She has worked with a variety of youth arts education and social justice organizations, trying her hand at teaching everything from dance and theater to poetry and rock music. A recent graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, she is a dancer, musician, and writer dedicated to using art to challenge systems of power and transform education. As coordinator she can be found leading field trips in the Secret Library and organizing birthday parties and space rentals.

Photo by Aslan Chalom

Volunteer Coordinator

Mandy Seiner has been a part of the 826 community since 2016, when she joined 826 Boston as a Youth Programs intern. She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the ketchup capital of the world, and earned her BFA in Poetry at Emerson College in Boston. Prior to joining 826, she worked as a corps member with the Jumpstart program and a teacher with the Institute of Reading Development. When she’s not mobilizing volunteers, you can find her cooking brussel sprouts or humming along to the Mamma Mia soundtrack on the J train.

Photo by Aslan Chalom

Development and Marketing Strategist

Antoinette Gregg comes to 826NYC having spend the past decade in nonprofit. Her experience comes from development and student advocacy. She has worked in development and fundraising in organizations like the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) as a Canvass Director and Program Coordinator as well as Everytown for Gun Safety as Development Assistant. Her knowledge runs the gamut from door-to-door to grant writing to donor database management. When she isn’t raising funds and awareness she is freelance-writing creative nonfiction, cooking and going to karaoke.

Photo by Aslan Chalom