Henry Street Settlement

March 27, 2025

Wendy Velazquez has been with JPMorganChase for more than 19 years, having spent the last 3 as the Community Manager for the Chase branch on the Lower East Side at the corner of Delancey and Essex Streets. In this role, she focuses on promoting financial health education and bringing workshops to Lower East Side organizations and businesses. Since 2023, she has collaborated with a number of Henry Street Settlement’s programs, including the Workforce Development Center, to host workshops for teens, English language learners, and adults who’ve recently started new jobs. Wendy has even taken the partnership to the next level by connecting qualified candidates to open roles at Chase.

How did your partnership with Henry Street Settlement start? 

The Corporate Responsibility team at JPMorganChase has supported the programming and services at Henry Street for a long time, and the idea of bringing in financial health education to the relationship evolved naturally. I started with the Summer Youth Employment Program, then we rolled out trainings into the adult ESOL program, and it just expanded from there. We’re here to help answer critical questions for those Henry Street serves like, “How do I manage my first paycheck? How do I set up a budget? How do I establish emergency funding? How do I now start building my credit?”

What does it mean to be a Community Manager?

Being a Community Manager has been the most fulfilling role that I’ve held with JPMorganChase. I am hyperlocal, and I’m really an ambassador, connecting community members, nonprofit partners and business owners to financial health education and opportunities that exist in our community. It’s very personal because we are in community, helping break the systemic challenges that exist around financial health by really delivering resources and expanding knowledge.

Being first-generation New Yorker, a product of immigrant parents, I know firsthand the struggles that my Lower East Side neighbors have encountered growing up. This is more of a passion for me as opposed to just a job.

In what ways are you using Henry Street’s customized staffing resources?

First and foremost, being active at jobs fairs and in job-readiness programming is a great opportunity for our management team to identify talent — and it’s an important way we can help support our neighbors. After being connected to Jeanie Tung, we’ve been able to bring managers from different New York City Chase branches to do mock interview sessions with jobseekers at the Workforce Development Center. These are both networking opportunities for hiring managers and help Henry Street workforce program participants. In my personal experience from participating in these different types of programs, I always hear someone saying, “I didn’t know that customer service was key in starting off in an entry level role with a bank!” I’ve enjoyed sharing my story of how I started at Chase — I had no cash handling experience and yet I still was hired as an entry-level bank teller.

Here at our Lower East Side branch, we were connected to an SYEP participant who went on to the On Ramps to Opportunities program at Henry Street’s Workforce Development Center, and she is now actually at our local Lower East Side branch working as an Associate Banker, helping clients and other fellow Henry Street participants.

What makes a good partnership with a community organization?

Having consistent follow up and debrief calls are the best ways to strengthen the organizational relationship, because not every program idea always works or fits. Having those quarterly discussions in regards to what went well or how can we pivot or improve our offerings ensures that we are maximizing impact for participants and jobseekers.

I’d like to highlight two staff members at Henry Street whom I’ve worked really closely with. Kiana Walbrook, who was formerly the director of Job Essentials Training (JET) and On Ramps (ORO) and now leads Learn@HenryStreet, has partnered with me to host a quarterly workshop that was all about financial health after you’ve landed the job. And then, with Iliana Balbuena at Work, Learn, and Grow, we’ve taken ideas from our quarterly discussions to pivot the way that we deliver the workshops to serve a larger audience. She said the youth participants love the workshops and they want more, so we’ve taken that feedback and are excited to be launching a hybrid financial health workshop later this year.

Interested in learning more about Henry Street’s customized staffing services? Please reach out to Jeanie Tung, Senior Director of Business Development & Workforce Partnerships, at JTung@HenryStreet.org or 212.478.5400.