MFOL always pushes the boundaries in the courts.
Yvin Shin, Legal Associate
- Blog
We Transformed a Moment Into a Movement—Staff Members Leading the Way
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Six years since we marched for the first time, March For Our Lives is now one of the largest youth movements in the nation. That’s in no small part thanks to the valiant organizers who turned a cause into a career and who are on the frontlines of fighting for transformative change—and helping other young people do the same. This movement is what it is today because of the tireless work of staff members in shaping MFOL, nurturing it, and watching it grow. We wanted to introduce you to just a few folks helping shape the movement.
Elena Perez
At just 10 years old, Elena became an activist for mental health—volunteering at local organizations in New Jersey and speaking out at school. So in 2018 after the Parkland shooting, she was acutely aware of the intersection between mental health and gun violence. While many might picture mass shootings when they think of gun violence, over half of all gun deaths are suicides. People with mental illness are often mischaracterized as being a threat to others, when in fact, they are at higher risk of becoming a victim of gun violence themselves. Elena joined March with a mission to change that.
She first started as a chapter lead in New Jersey, helping organize young people in her county, and then joined staff as our New Jersey State Director. Over the years, she hopped to a number of different roles, before landing in her current role as Senior Policy Associate, helping to oversee our policy work in DC. At just 23, she now works with the White House, Congress, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to ensure that even at the highest levels, youth voices aren’t just heard but listened to.
“These are rooms that young people once couldn’t get in, but now they ask March For Our Lives to come in these rooms as experts—as people who truly know the effects and the solutions to gun violence,” she says.
Her role is pivotal in turning our work in the streets and college campuses into lifesaving laws. Following tragedies in Buffalo and Uvalde, Elena helped organize a massive lobbying effort, connecting youth activists with over 80 lawmakers in the span of one week to demand gun safety legislation. And it worked. Between the meetings and the historic second March For Our Lives, Congress passed the first federal gun safety package in three decades, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. From New Jersey to Capitol Hill, Elena is a political force, shaping policy and getting young people into the room we once didn’t belong.
Yvin Shin
Though she’s lived in the United States for most of her life, Yvin was a South Korean citizen when she joined the Judicial Advocacy Team (JAT) in 2022 as a Legal Associate. She had considered applying for American citizenship before but hesitated since it meant forfeiting her South Korean citizenship. But from her work at MFOL, she became “so invested in making this country better,” in her words, she applied and became an American citizen.
As a Legal Associate, Yvin writes amicus briefs, which are “friend of the court” documents that offer further expertise and insight to judges as they consider cases. While many courts are stuffed with legalese and hypotheticals, JAT files unique briefs that center the stories of gun violence survivors. They remind the court in stark detail of what’s at stake with its decision: human lives.
The first brief Yvin filed was in Illinois, where she grew up. After the Highland Park shooting, MFOL activists quickly pushed for and passed the Protect Illinois Communities Act, a far-reaching package including an assault weapons ban. Almost as quickly, a court threatened that ban. Yvin jumped into action. She filed an amicus brief highlighting the stories of 20 Illinoisans, from survivors of the Highland Park and Northern Illinois University shootings to Black and brown communities who face gun violence on the daily—bringing the voices of people who intimately understood the grief and pain of assault weapons into the court system. Thankfully, the court listened and saved the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
Though Yvin is just 20 and still an undergraduate at Columbia University, she defies expectations of what young people are capable of in the courts. “Attorney Generals’ offices and lawyers and law firms and judges recognize our work and they’re excited about it—that we’re in the room,” she said. Yvin and JAT are reshaping what the courtroom looks like, opening the doors for many more young people to follow in their footsteps.
Ariel Hobbs
In her five years at March For Our Lives, Ariel shaped and shifted the movement, energizing our advocacy while creating sustainable structures so the energy could last. Following the 2018 Parkland shooting, she knew that even in pro-gun Texas, there are people who care more about kids’ lives than guns. So, Ariel rallied people together in her hometown of Houston in one of the largest sibling marches to March For Our Lives in 2018.
From there, Ariel’s advocacy took off. Soon, she was on the road with MFOL members and Parkland survivors visiting communities across the country. Shortly thereafter, at just 21 years old, she was invited to join the March For Our Lives board, where she took lessons she learned on the ground to help build the structure for a lasting movement. At the conclusion of her board term, she joined staff to help lead MFOL’s project work and partnerships with other organizations and groups.
Over the years and in many roles, Ariel made her mark on the movement as a fierce leader and powerful voice. She spoke in front of Congress and interviewed candidates in the 2020 presidential election. But she also worked behind the scenes to ensure that MFOL meaningfully addressed racial and economic justice. Ariel helped lead the way for the movement to promote holistic and community-based solutions to gun violence.
MFOL showed me that the dark times don’t always stay so dark. With the right people around you and the right intentions, anything is possible.
Ariel Hobbs, former MFOL Board and Staff Member
After five years with March For Our Lives, it was a bittersweet moment when Ariel moved on in 2023 to take up a role as the Associate Director for the BigFuture Ambassador Community. But like so many other young people at MFOL, she left behind a powerful legacy—and an organization all the more ready to take on gun violence.
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We need you in the movement. Join or start a chapter in person, or join a digital team and get involved in the fight for gun safety.
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