Jason Gamez is the Advocacy and Community Engagement (ACE) Manager at Cayenne Wellness Center and Children’s Foundation, where he leads statewide outreach, coalition-building, and mobilization for California’s Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) community and its annual Advocacy Day.
Born and raised in Echo Park to Salvadoran parents, Jason grew up in a household where Spanish was the first language and where silence — not advocacy — was often the response to hardship, shaped by the fear of retaliation and oppression that immigrant and working-class families learn to carry quietly. The displacement, financial hardship, and marginalization his family and neighbors endured took a real toll on his quality of life growing up — and it is precisely what shaped his conviction to walk through every room serving others, never expecting to be served.
As Senior Field Deputy to Councilmember Kevin de León, Jason led tenant organizing and town halls that helped pass the Interim Control Ordinance, halting the demolition of rent-stabilized housing in the very neighborhoods that raised him. Through the L.A. REPAIR Participatory Budgeting Program he helped steward $775,000 to amplify underrepresented voices in Westlake.
Jason holds a B.A. in Political Science from USC and is pursuing a Master of Arts in Public Administration there, expected December 2026. A native Spanish speaker, he brings a bilingual, bicultural lens — and a deeply personal commitment — to making sure California’s 7,000 Sickle Cell Warriors and their families are organized, heard at the Capitol, and never left to advocate alone.
