Jon Kest

Jon Kest was a founder of the Working Families Party and a longtime community advocate in New York, who organized the recent strike by the city’s fast-food workers. At his death, Mr. Kest was the executive director of New York Communities for Change, an organization based in Brooklyn that advocates on behalf of poor and working-class New Yorkers on issues like wages, housing and education. Mr. Kest was previously the head organizer of New York Acorn, the local chapter of the national nongovernmental organization. In 2010, after the national group’s demise amid allegations — some later discredited — of mismanagement and fiscal impropriety, Mr. Kest and colleagues founded New York Communities for Change. He helped found the Working Families Party, begun in 1998 by a consortium that included Acorn, labor unions and other advocacy groups. The party, which has chapters throughout New York State and in Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon and South Carolina, seeks to advance a liberal agenda on a range of issues. Jonathan Lee Kest was born on June 17, 1955, in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and reared in White Plains. After studying at Oberlin College, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Besides his brother, Mr. Kest is survived by a sister, Amy Kest; his parents, Martin and Ruth Kest; his wife, Fran Streich; and a son, Jake Streich-Kest. A daughter, Jessie Streich-Kest, was killed in Brooklyn on Oct. 29, when she was struck by a falling tree during Hurricane Sandy.