Former East Ramapo student describes advocacy, community outreach for ERCSD students

Kerri Brogancano, a former East Ramapo Central School District (Spring Valley) student and community advocate, summarized her education and advocacy work in recorded remarks included in the meeting transcript.

Brogancano said she graduated from Ramapo High School in 2018 and later attended Berkeley College, where she studied fashion merchandising and gained industry experience at events including New York Fashion Week and New York Bridal Fashion Week. She described combining that work with social-justice activities: organizing a fundraiser to support an immigrant-advocacy organization and researching injustices in immigration detention centers for her honors thesis.

Why it matters: Brogancano told the meeting she has continued to support East Ramapo students and the local immigrant community through volunteer efforts, public outreach and lobbying. Those activities, she said, included collecting more than 2,000 symbolic votes and survey responses from Rockland County’s immigrant community about children’s education and leading community delegations to Albany to meet with elected officials.

In the recorded remarks, Brogancano described presentations and recognition she and team members received for their research: speaking at the American Conference on Diversity, participating in a collegiate research challenge run by the Black Inventors Hall of Fame, and presenting research in Tulsa that received an award for work on trafficking and the adultification of young Black girls in America. She also said her advocacy has been noted in media outlets identified in the transcript as the Washington Post, El Diario and The Positive Community.

Brogancano said she partners with a local organization identified in the transcript as Las Mejores Wayas de los Imigrantes and has volunteered on clothing drives for people experiencing homelessness. "She believes that all East Ramapo Students deserve a great education, and she encourages students of color to know that they are strong as a community, but even stronger when educated," the transcript records.

The recorded remarks ended with questions asked of Brogancano about which East Ramapo high school she graduated from and what fashion events she had attended; the speaker also was asked what "Las Mejores Wayas de los Imigrantes" translates to in English. The transcript records that Brogancano graduated from Ramapo High School and that she attended New York Fashion Week and New York Bridal Fashion Week; the translation of the organization’s name is not specified in the transcript.