Each spring, Tucson’s Jewish Latino Teen Coalition (JLTC) heads to Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers on a topic they’ve chosen and spent months researching.
JLTC convenes 10 to 12 high school sophomores and juniors annually to foster multicultural understanding and political advocacy. Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona and U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva started the program, which remains unique to Tucson, in 2004.
Last year’s cohort researched 10 to 15 topics, honing in on three or four of the most impactful, says participant Nathan Sheinbein, now in his senior year at University High School.
They decided on welfare and food insecurity, lobbying legislators to increase funding for the Farm Bill, which covers Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, the modern name for food stamps.
The teens met with Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, Rep. Juan Ciscomani, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and other legislators and their staffs.
Alycia Reyes, now a Flowing Wells High School senior, explains that part of JLTC’s pitch was to get hot foods included in SNAP, which generally covers only foods meant to be cooked and eaten at home, excluding items like rotisserie chicken. Reyes was in charge of presenting a personal story.
“I actually spoke on my own story and how that could have helped my family through our hardships,” says Reyes.
Her presentation emphasized that “this is real,” says Shari Gootter, who has volunteered as the JLTC coordinator for 18 years. “There wasn’t a dry eye when she was speaking.”
For Reyes, “It was such an amazing feeling to finally put out our work and finally feel like I was making an impact.”
Facing an impasse over SNAP benefits and other programs such as crop insurance, in 2023 Congress extended the Farm Bill’s five-year authorization for a year. New extensions could push the issue into 2025, according to news reports.
But the JLTC’s lobbying efforts may have had an effect. The proposed Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act of 2024 includes a provision for a study on allowing hot foods to be purchased with SNAP benefits, says former Tucsonan Josh Protas, chief advocacy and policy officer at Meals on Wheels America.
“The students should feel proud that something they advocated for got traction!” Protas told Gootter in an email.
A variety of paths lead students to apply to JLTC. Students from five local high schools, Catalina Foothills, Tucson High, University High, Flowing Wells, and Basis North, participated in 2024.
Sheinbein heard about the program in his BBYO Jewish youth group. A friend, Ryan Rudner, had participated the previous year.
The principal at Flowing Wells urged Reyes to apply, impressed with her grades and leadership skills. Reyes has been a student council member for all four years of high school and has been involved with the National Honor Society, participating in community service events.
Reyes applied to JLTC during her sophomore year and was not selected.
“I didn’t give up,” she says. She was accepted as a junior.
Reyes says she loves every aspect of the program, but traveling to D.C. and lobbying stands out.
“Lobbying made me realize how strong and powerful my voice actually is,” she says. “Not many teenagers have the opportunity to go and lobby Congress. It was definitely a big moment for me. It made me more confident in expressing my ideas and opinions.”
JLTC also gave Sheinbein confidence in public speaking.
“When you’re sitting with a senator or representative in their office, I don’t know if it can get much more stressful or high stakes than that,” he says.
Gootter says the students “were amazing in these different scenarios,” explaining that in the unscripted interactions following their presentations, “the leadership skills and the true passion comes out.”
Sheinbein was likewise impressed with his fellow students in the coalition.
“Not only were the teens really passionate about politics but also people who wanted to make a change for the better in their communities, and just kind and respectful,” he says.
While many Jewish teens in the U.S. have felt isolated since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, for JLTC, it was “an issue that brought us together,” says Sheinbein. “Everyone was really respectful. We had a lot of open discussion about how each of our communities felt at the time.”
In D.C., one lawmaker who saw the JLTC name assumed they were there to discuss Israel, Gootter says, but pivoted quickly when an aide explained the group’s topic was food insecurity.
In addition, the adult advisors — Shari Gootter, Matt Landau, Lisa Kondrat, and Brad Goldstein — are “phenomenal people,” Sheinbein says. Landau and Kondrat were members of the coalition’s first cohort. Goldstein first volunteered as a chaperone on the 2010 D.C. trip.
Another alumna, Amanda Monroy, connected the 2024 JLTC members with the White House Fellows, an elite group whose former participants include CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and former Secretary of State and General Colin Powell. Monroy helped lead JLTC’s weekly sessions for the last two years, and before that, as a public health policy expert, gave presentations to several cohorts.
While each JLTC cohort has brought enthusiasm to the program, the 2024 group absorbed the leadership lessons so completely, Gootter says, that they wrote a petition asking to stay more involved.
“Our work isn’t done,” they told Gootter.
The previous year’s cohort assists with application interviews and at least one training workshop, Gootter says, but she is exploring other ways to keep the 2024 group involved.
Applications for JLTC’s 2025 program are available here. The deadline is Nov. 1, but extensions are available. For more information, contact Gootter at sharigootter@comcast.net or Arielle Shemesh, JPSA community impact coordinator, at ashemes@jparizona.org or (520) 577-9393.
