When we first profiled Jessica Leon on the Isaacs Center blog in 2022, she was working for a big real estate company in downtown Manhattan. It was the culmination of a journey she’d begun years ago when she enrolled in a job readiness program at Isaacs.
She was was 17 back then and her daughter was two. She had no interest in the program, but it came with something she did want: a subway pass. “I had not a dollar to my name, so I did it for the MetroCard,” she recalled.
Leon had grown up in foster care. She was navigating the transition to adulthood without a lot of role models. “No one in my family ever graduated high school. No one ever had a job. No one really told me, ‘Jessica, go to college. Jessica, do good for yourself and your daughter,’” she explained. “I was very lost.”
Despite her initial lack of interest, she enjoyed the career readiness program and did well. Soon after she graduated, she was offered a job as a receptionist at the Isaacs Center. From there, she began to climb—eventually landing a job at a big Wall Street firm, and then making the switch to real estate.
When we talked to her in 2022 she was an assistant building manager. Since then she’s been promoted to managing director, overseeing a large building in Jersey City and another in the Bronx. Her daughter has graduated from college and works for a plumbing company.
“Every now and then she’ll call and ask me about plans and drawings and we dive in together on that, which is pretty cool,” she said.
“I’ve been through a lot. I appreciate everything at this point,” she added. “What I needed from my mother or guardian, the Isaacs Center did it. To be told from the time you’re four years old that you’re nothing—you start thinking you’re nothing. But the Isaacs Center believed in me.”
The Isaacs Center and Goddard Riverside merged in 2025. Learn more.