WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries released the following statement: 

I am honored to announce that I have invited Ms. Pamela Lockley of East New York, Ms. Gretchen Jefferson of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Ms. Kateryna (Kate) Myron of Gravesend to attend tonight’s Joint Address as my guests.

Ms. Pamela Lockley has been living in Linden Plaza since 1975. She has two adult daughters who are disabled and rely on Medicaid to access the care they need. Ms. Lockley receives 75% of her monthly income through Social Security benefits and is one of the thousands of New Yorkers who count on SNAP to put healthy food on the table. Without these crucial benefits, she wouldn’t be able to support herself or her family. Ms. Lockley and the millions of seniors like her deserve better than the Republican scheme to cut Social Security, destroy Medicaid and slash nutritional assistance. 

Ms. Gretchen Jefferson was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer on Mother’s Day in 2016. Medicaid preventive care efforts pushed her to do the colonoscopy screening that led her doctors to detect the cancer before it was too late. Ms. Jefferson is an administrator at New Life Tabernacle Church in Brooklyn and has been cancer-free for eight years. Without Medicaid, she wouldn’t have been able to afford the health care that saved her life. Republican cuts to this essential program would be devastating for Gretchen and so many others.  

Ms. Kateryna (Kate) Myron was born in Marhanets, a city in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a central region of Ukraine. After the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Myron was forced to flee to Moldova to live with relatives. While in Moldova, she continued teaching online and studied remotely at Arizona State University. In 2023, she moved to the United States and has been working at the Shorefront Y in Brighton Beach as a Case Manager and ESL teacher for nearly a year. Kate is just one of the millions of people whose lives have been upended by Putin’s war of aggression. Her presence reminds us that despite the insistence by some that we should abandon our partners, we must continue to stand with the Ukrainian people until victory is won.

In addition to these constituents, Leader Jeffries invited people whose families were brutally attacked by Hamas on October 7:

• Mr. Iair Horn, who was taken hostage for nearly 500 days, and brother of Eitan Horn, still held in captivity in Gaza. 
• Ms. Yael Alexander and Mr. Adi Alexander, parents of American hostage Edan Alexander who is currently being held hostage by Hamas. 

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