Community News
Giselle Burgess Sets Political Sights on 2021
Driving force behind Girl Scout Troop 6000
runs for Van Bramer’s City Council seat
Dare to Run
Giselle Burgess
Brent O’Leary announced
he would seek Van Bramer’s
seat back in August 2018,
Councilman Van Bramer’s office
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I DECEMBER 2019 25
BY BILL PARRY
The Woodside native who co-founded the
city’s first Girl Scout troop for homeless
girls has announced she will run for City
Council to replace the elected official that
helped her do it.
Giselle Burgess, 34, will file papers with the Board
of Elections next month to run for Councilman Jimmy
Van Bramer’s District 26 office in 2021 — when he is
term-limited out — to represent her hometown Wood-side,
Sunnyside and Long Island City where she lived
in a homeless shelter with her five children in 2017.
Burgess, a community engagement specialist for
the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, and her children
lived at the Sleep Inn hotel, when she collaborated
with Van Bramer and Sunnyside resident Meredith
Maskara, the COO of the Girl Scouts of Greater New
York to create Troop 6000 for 22 girls living in the
shelter. Burgess then managed the expansion of the
program to more than 18 shelters citywide serving
more than 600 girls and women volunteers.
“I was debating about running for his office since
August and I decided it’s time to make more of an im-pact,”
Burgess said. “I’m in Ozone Park, but I’m looking
for a house back in Woodside where I was born and
raised. I want to go home, that’s where my heart is.
There are so many good organizations in Woodside
but nobody seems to be working together and that’s
something we can change. I want to do something
different. I want to run with the community, not for the
community. Let’s change things together.”
Burgess and her children became homeless in
2016 when the home she rented in Flushing was sold
to make way for a condominium. After a year in the
system, she was able to find a new home in Ozone
Park and gave birth to her second son.
“As a working mother of six and someone who
has recently experienced homelessness, I know first-hand
how hard it is to survive in our own community,”
Burgess wrote on social media Monday. “With the
cost of living going up and the lack and instability of
affordable housing we are all two paychecks away
from becoming homeless. I guarantee that I will fight
my hardest to ensure that more affordable housing is
offered in our community as well as enforcing stabilized
rent laws and extending them to those who may not
live in a rent stabilized home.”
Burgess explained that she was empowered to run
for office after taking a 14-week training course with
Dare to Run, a nonprofit organization which provides
the skills women need in order to run for public office
at the local, state and national levels of government.
“I know how to do this because of the course.
They provided the knowledge and training that you
just don’t find on a Google search. They have given me
confidence and courage as well and I have my notes
so I know how to get this campaign up and running,”
Burgess said. “There is such a need for women to run for
office and Dare to Run makes you feel courageous and
undefeatable. I want more women to feel encouraged
to know that their voices do matter and there is a way
for them to give back to the community and using Dare
to Run as the foundation is definitely the way to go.”
In addition to her work at the Girl Scouts of Greater
New York Burgess was unanimously elected to the
board of directors at The Child Center of NY, a Forest
Hills-based nonprofit Burgess called a “hidden gem
that nobody knows about until they need their help.”
She became a client after losing the family home in
Flushing.
“I will let them know I’m running for office at
the next board meeting to see it there is a conflict
of interest,” Burgess said. “The same goes with the
Girl Scouts.”
When Troop 6000 was chartered in his district,
Van Bramer said it was “one of the best things” he
had ever been a part of.
“Giselle Burgess is a strong woman whose life story
is deeply moving and inspiring,” Van Bramer said Tuesday.
“I am proud of all she has accomplished and fortunate
to call her a friend. I wish her nothing but the best.”
Hunters Point Civic Association president Brent
O’Leary, who announced he would run for Van Bramer’s
seat back in August 2018, said he welcomes Burgess
into the race.
“I believe in true democracy, so I’m happy to see
that more voices are joining in on debating the best
course for the community’s future,” O’Leary said adding
that his civic group recently finished their annual food
drive which provides more than 4,000 pounds of food
and critical items to area food pantries for the homeless.
As for Burgess’s children, she has already received
their vote of confidence.
“Oh my God, they’re so excited and supportive
over this,” Burgess said. “My older girls just look at
me and say ‘just do it, mom.’”
The Child Center of NY
Girl Scout Troop 6000 co-founder Giselle Burgess an-nounces
she will run for Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer’s
seat in 2021.
Van Bramer joins Burgess, Maskara and members of Troop
6000 during a tour of City Hall in 2017
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