Yvette Velázquez Bennett grew up in the Elliot/Chelsea Housing Projects in Manhattan with her two brothers and Puerto Rican immigrant parents. Her mother volunteered to teach reading at the local public school and later became a teacher. Her father was a Career Counselor and an elected member of the Local School Board.

She attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and CUNY’s City College. Thirty-one years ago Yvette married her husband John and moved to her current home in tree-lined Windsor Terrace. She went to work at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and worked her way up from Clerk Typist to Information Systems Engineer.

In 1992 Yvette left her career to dedicate herself full-time to rear and home school her children now ages 15 and 17. Even though home-schooling can be demanding and time consuming, Yvette found time to be a church clerk and secretary and assisted with the music ministry in her church. She currently teaches Sunday school to a group of boys in the fourth through sixth grades. She is a community activist and regularly attends community meetings. She is currently a member of  NYC OEM Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) in Community Board 7.  In her City Council race in 2005, she doubled the expected results in a race against a nationally known and well-funded City Council incumbent. In her 2006 race for State Assembly, in a very difficult year for Republicans, she had a very good showing.

A few years ago Yvette became involved with the Brooklyn Victory Committee. The goal of the Brooklyn Victory Committee was to provide support for a successful NY GOP convention and the re-election of George W. Bush. She was involved with their voter registration drive. Yvette worked as a volunteer at the GOP convention here in New York. She was part of Site Operations within the Garden and worked directly with Vice-President Cheney’s security team. Yvette was on the floor of Madison Square Garden for President Bush’s acceptance speech. It was during this speech that Yvette was inspired to look for more opportunities to serve her community. She later joined the Brooklyn Young Republicans to expose her children to other young people who are committed to making a difference. Party leadership noticed Yvette while she was organizing an outreach to Pastors in Brooklyn. She has said that her goal was to bring a moral compass to the Brooklyn Republican Party. She believes that voters should have a clearly defined choice when they go to the polls. Yvette thinks that is why she may have been tapped for her City Council race in 2005 and was encouraged to run for State Assembly in 2006 and again this year.

Campaign Alert!!!

I am pleased to announce that I have received the endorsement of
The Honorable James Tedisco
NYS Assembly Minority Leader