Ana Lopez serves as the coordinator of the Sleepy Hollow office of the non-profit Westchester Hispanic Coalition and has quite a lot on her plate. But she is not complaining.

“It’s a beautiful thing to be able through the Westchester Hispanic Coalition to do what we’re doing because I believe that this is a very historic moment for Sleepy Hollow,” she said during a recent interview in her office. “A lot of changes are occurring.”

Mayor Ken Wray and others are reaching out to the Hispanic community in the village, Lopez said. “We’re all working together, which didn’t happen before,” she said.

Part of the collaboration has come about as a result of the formation of the Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Service Providers Coalition, Lopez said. Her agency is also part of the effort to help tenants to organize among themselves. In addition, Wray has created a task force for housing to address “one of the biggest issues we have in the community.”

Lopez is responsible for case management for the area. “Case management entails assisting clients in all aspects of their lives,” she said. Some of her efforts include helping her clients obtain government entitlements, housing, wages, and employment. Her work also includes health care advocacy and dealing with immigration issues. Lopez works with both native born Hispanics and immigrants.

Lopez runs the Sleepy Hollow office with only a part-time assistant to help her out. Her case load varies.

“It depends. There are weeks that you can have 30 clients,” Lopez said. “We usually see about six people a day.”

The Coalition’s Sleepy Hollow satellite office has been in existence for four years. Lopez began her work in the village two-and-one-half years ago.

Prior to taking on her current position, Lopez did clinical social work, dealing with individuals with mental illnesses and with people living in hospitals and shelters.

“My interest is the law part of social work. Advocacy is a great thing to do,” she said.

The mission of the Coalition is “to empower the whole community. Not just to empower certain people,” Lopez said. “I personally believe 100 percent in the village concept, that we are all part of a bigger picture.”

Lopez described empowerment as “a process that comes with education, to begin with.” Part of the educational process includes informing individuals as to “what their responsibilities and rights are.”

Under capitalism there are many layers of systems that individuals, especially immigrants, need to learn about, Lopez said.

“Once you teach a person how to go through one system they know that every system works similarly,” she said. “You show them how to create a path so they create their own path. That is empowerment.”

Immigration is the biggest issue for Hispanics in the Sleepy Hollow area, Lopez said.

“I think that I’m optimistic that the American people are going to realize that they too were immigrants,” she said. “But more than anything else, we are part of your community. We have served you well. We are raising your children. And our children are going to be the nurses, the doctors, the lawyers that you’re going to need when you get older.”

Lopez, who resides in Carmel, described her work as “100 percent” fulfilling and not frustrating.

“I learned a long time ago that I cannot fight what is there because it has worked for some people,” she said. “What I can do is to teach others how to go through it and just move forward. For me, every agency or every bueracracy is going to serve my clients.”

“It is an incredible gift to be able to do something, to know you have a purpose. And that you’re working for an agency that has the same dreams that you do and that those dreams do become realities every single day,” Lopez said.