Karen joined LINC in 2013, after working as a service coordinator and supervisor for other nonprofits and starting her own business. She also worked as a service coordinator serving the homeless population and as a vocation counselor at an adolescent substance abuse counselor. Here at LINC, Karen uses her planning and management background to oversee not only all of our Brooklyn and Queens programming, but several other initiatives as well. She directs our summer programming and our participation in national early literacy events, and she heads our Special Events Team. She is also an Associate Director of the Reads initiative, a collective impact project comprising LINC and nine other partner organizations promoting early literacy in East New York and South Jamaica. Karen was born in Guatemala and came to the U.S. when she was three years old; as the oldest child she helped her family translate important documents into Spanish. She was a voracious reader as a child, and still loves Charlotte’s Web and the Ramona Quimby and Amelia Bedelia series. Outside of LINC, she loves art, color, and crafting, spending time designing and decorating clothing and spaces. She also loves spending time at the beach, even in winter.