St. Louis |2011

After graduating from the University of Missouri with degrees in History and Psychology and a master’s in Political Science, Danielle Nygaard spent eight years teaching government and history at private schools in the St. Louis area. Upon deciding to leave teaching, she entered a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Mission: St. Louis in their Beyond Jobs program. In this position, she was part of a team that organized and led four cohorts of the organization’s Job and Leadership Training program, the mission of which is to empower men from under-resourced communities to become leaders in their families, jobs and communities. Her experience as a VISTA was so enriching, she decided to sign up for a second year of service, this time as a VISTA Leader. If you think of the VISTA year as summer camp, she is the camp counselor for the fifty VISTAs serving at about two dozen nonprofits in the St. Louis area.
 

In her free time, Danielle is active as a coach with the local Girls on the Run chapter, an organization that believes every girl can embrace who she is, define who she wants to be, rise to any challenge, and change the world. She is also a member of West County Community Action Network (WE CAN), an organization that is working to address systemic racism in local institutions. Danielle enjoys running 5ks for good causes, hiking state and national parks, bringing a good sci-fi or fantasy book, and finding new things to do in the city.

Haley Shoaf is the VP of Impact at LaunchCode, a nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the tech talent gap by providing free, high-quality training and job placement to driven individuals who lack typical credentials. In her role, she oversees student program operations and community engagement. Haley originally came to St. Louis as a Venture for America Fellow and remains an active VFA alumnus. She is a graduate of the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service. Passionate about prison reform and education, she formerly headed the Georgetown Prison Outreach Program, and currently runs a coding education program for inmates in Missouri.
 

Kyle Lackey is a St. Louis Native who anticipates graduating from the University of Missouri – St. Louis with a B.A in Business Administration with an Emphasis in Management in December of 2018. Upon graduation, he plans to continue his education at UMSL in the School of Education and seeks to obtain his Masters in Higher Education.

Through his educational exposure, Kyle strives to bring systematic change in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Previously, he has volunteered on consulting groups such as the Strategic Planning Council – Student Success Compact and currently is a part of the Chancellor’s Cultural Diversity Council.

In the Spring semester of 2019, he plans to accept a Graduate Assistantship position in the office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at UMSL where he will work to create an engaging and harmonious climate where the talents of diverse faculty, staff and students flourish.

Kyle’s primary goal is to create community-centered educational pipelines in underresourced communities so that one day the common St. Louis question, “Where did you go to high school?” becomes irrelevant. The quality of education shouldn’t be determined by where students live. By creating these pipelines, Kyle intends to provide education and resources to students before they can take advantage of dual enrollment/credit opportunities to obtain an affordable degree without going into debt.

Bomi Park is an immigrant from South Korea. She came to the United States for the first time as a high school exchange student ten years ago, with the dream of becoming an English teacher in her country. After many years, Bomi decided to call St. Louis home, mainly because of the relationships she has cultivated here as well as the opportunities she discovered herself in. Bomi is an Assistant Project Manager at the World Trade Center St. Louis and the St. Louis Mosaic Project, and she works hard to create an environment that is welcoming and inclusive to foreign-born people in the St. Louis area.

Bomi graduated from McKendree University where she earned her bachelor's degree in Psychology. She currently serves as a Marketing Vice Chair on the Board of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network St. Louis (YNPN St. Louis). In her spare time, she volunteers as the Area Representative for an exchange student program and helps foreign students and their host families have a great cultural exchanging experience. Volunteering at a local nonprofit organization that provides employment to people experiencing homelessness is one of her ways to give back to the community. Bomi enjoys and appreciates the nature very much, and loves to rock climb with her husband and friends. Bomi loves to meet people and make friends. She loves to find ways to bring people together, and more often than not, discovered it is food that works without fail!

Brock Ingmire works in policy and advocacy for the country’s largest non-profit health system, Ascension. He primarily works with Ascension’s state-based advocates to coordinate state policy strategy and direct grassroots advocacy for the health system, but also manages a federal portfolio that includes day-to-day oversight of policy impacting immigration and human trafficking.

Prior to working for Ascension, Brock worked as a staffer for elected officials and in government relations for organizations in the financial, healthcare and local government sectors. Most recently before Ascension, he worked with the League of Kansas Municipalities leading the League’s policy research and analysis efforts, working with the state legislature to craft fiscal impact scenarios for policy impacting cities in Kansas, and managing an advocacy portfolio of pensions and benefits, tax policy and healthcare.

Brock is a graduate of Kansas State University, having received his B.S., with a major in Communication Studies and a minor in Political Science and an M.A. in Communication Studies. Since moving to St. Louis in early 2017, Brock has served on the board of directors for Payback, Inc., an organization working with the five-area county juvenile court systems to implement a system of restitution and restorative justice, and the Friends of St. Louis Public Schools.

He lives in the Bevo Mill neighborhood with his partner, Dr. Leslie Reece, and their rescue dog, Cinder.  

Caroline Swaller is a Research Analyst for True Global Intelligence at FleishmanHillard where she conducts qualitative and quantitative research for a variety of clients across diverse market sectors. She received her dual Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at the Heller School for Social Policy at Brandeis University in May of 2017. While at the Heller School, Caroline worked under Anita Hill to complete a policy change and implementation recommendation for the re-structuring of sexual assault complaints at Brandeis University. Caroline also focused her research on labor policies effects on women and mothers, having her Op-Ed “The Mommy Economy” published in the Huffington Post. Her master’s thesis examined the care penalty as a negative externality and example of market failure in the United States and researched both political and philosophical measures to bring value to care work in America.
 

Caroline previously worked as a Research Consultant for the Institute on Assets and Social Policy on the Family, Friends, and Neighbors project in Bangor, Maine. She conducted qualitative and quantitative research on barriers to childcare for low-income and at-risk families. Between graduate school years, Caroline was a Workplace Policy Researcher with the National Partnership for Women & Families in Washington D.C. where she authored two cliterature reviews on paid leave trends in America, Australia, Canada, and the U.K, and on the racialized aspects of the women’s wealth gap. Caroline also worked as a lobbyist for the FAMILY Act and the Paid Sick Days bill.
 

Post-undergraduate (2013) at Denison University, Caroline completed a term of service with Americorps NCCC, FEMA Corps. Caroline was a Digital Communications Specialist for FEMA and specialized in trauma-oriented communications and care. While working with FEMA, she authored a White Paper arguing for a re-design of FEMA Disaster Assistance web pages to be more conducive with trauma literature and effects on human intellect and emotional capacity following survival of a natural disaster. Caroline has also worked in digital marketing for private D.C. based company GovLoop (Facebook for Govies) where she was a social media manager.

Chris LaBanca is the Founder and Executive Director of Solid Lines Productions: a non-profit theatre company that fosters community dialogue through theatre about socially-relevant issues. He has acted and directed professionally for the past 13 years. He served as the Director of Drama at SUNY Alfred as well as the Education Coordinator for Shakespeare in Delaware Park while living in Buffalo, New York. Upon moving to St. Louis, he founded Solid Lines Productions and has spent the past five years building and expanding the company so as to best serve the greater St. Louis community.

Chris is confident that it is the responsibility of any arts organization to care for the community of which that organization is asking support. To that end, he is most interested in building relationships with other local organizations that take action on the same issues that Solid Lines Productions addresses (such as domestic and sexual violence, human trafficking, racism, and mental health, among others), and using those relationships as a foundation in order to produce superior art that represents the entire St. Louis community while speaking specifically to this area's needs.

Beyond running a theatre company, Chris attended SUNY Geneseo and studied theatre. He acts whenever he has the opportunity, but particularly enjoys spending free time with his wife and one-year-old son. As a stay-at-home father, he really values time spent with family. Though there are times he misses the size and convenience of living in New York (as well as his season tickets to the New Jersey Devils), he has fallen in love with St. Louis, and living here has urged him to expend as much energy as possible contributing to this city

Ellen O’Neill is the Children’s Savings Account Coordinator for the City of St. Louis Treasurer’s Office. College Kids is an automatic enrollment, universal savings account program for all kindergarten, first, second, and third graders in the City of St. Louis. Every account is opened with a $50 deposit funded by city parking revenue. College Kids offers various additional incentives to help students grow their accounts. Incentives include a dollar for dollar match on the first $100 deposited per school year, $1 deposited for every week of perfect attendance, and $5 for participating in financial education courses. To date, there are over 12,000 students enrolled in the College Kids program with over $800,000 saved thus far.

Prior to her position at the City Treasurer’s Office, Ellen worked for the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis. While at CSD, Ellen was the Project Manager for the Refund to Savings (R2S) Initiative, a large-scale, multi-year research project conducted by social work and economics researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Duke University, and tax industry leaders at Intuit, Inc. R2S embedded behavioral economics techniques in TurboTax Freedom Edition to encourage improved financial outcomes tax time.

Ellen received her Master of Social Work degree in 2017 from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. During her time at the Brown School, Ellen studied Domestic Social and Economic Development with a specialization in policy. Ellen served on the Community Development Policy team at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during graduate school, where she devised and conducted a study of underserved and unbanked communities. This study applied techniques from Community-Based System Dynamics to convenings of key stakeholders across the seven states in the Federal Reserve’s District. Findings discussed the determinates of financial well-being and decision-making of unbanked or underserved communities.

Additionally, Ellen serves on the St. Louis International Institute Young Friends Board, the Campaign for Every Kids Future National Steering Committee, and the St. Louis Child Development Account Leadership Committee. Ellen holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Service Studies from Elon University in North Carolina.

Fatima Alvi is a medical student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. During her past three years in St. Louis, she has been on the board of the medical school’s student-run free clinic, organizing students and physicians to provide care to uninsured populations in the community. She is one of the founders of the medical school’s Women and Social Determinants of Medicine student group and is interested in the impact of social, political and environmental factors on health experiences. She is interested in issues of access to care both locally and globally and has performed research in Mwanza, Tanzania exploring feasible methods to improve patient care and outcomes in low-resource settings. She is also working on a research project exploring the impact of community health workers in St. Louis, in connecting families who have experienced trauma to health care and resources.

Originally from Austin, Texas, she graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. During her time in college, she was heavily involved in service activities, holding leadership positions in the largest student volunteer organization for three years. She strongly believes that service is an integral part of education, and is passionate about expanding opportunities for her peers to engage with the community. While in high school and college she interned with a non-profit organization focused on empowering women worldwide to become entrepreneurs and leaders for peace in their communities.

Jenn DeRose is the Program Manager for the Green Dining Alliance, a program of St. Louis Earth Day that certifies restaurants in sustainability. Jenn believes that stewardship of the environment can bring financial, emotional, and ecological benefits for everyone. She hopes that her work will help reduce St. Louis's environmental impact and help make her city a more resilient, equitable place to live.

Jenn serves as a member of 100% Renewable Energy Advisory Board for the City of St. Louis, mentors for the Green Schools Quest, and is a proud member of the St. Louis Food Policy Coalition and the US Green Building Council. Jenn is a graduate of Washington University, and has continued her education with Focus St. Louis’s Emerging Leaders Program, Crossroads ABAR (Anti Bias Anti Racism) training, and becoming a LEED GA.

Prior to joining the Green Dining Alliance, Jenn volunteered as a DJ on a community radio station and worked as a record store employee, a bartender, a waitress, a cook, and an eBay hustler, among other positions. She is fond of her cats Henry Catsinger and Taco, hiking, camping, and biking around St. Louis.
 

Jenny Connelly-Bowen is passionate about work that builds strong, inclusive communities. She currently serves as Executive Director for the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis (CBN), a coalition of community building organizations and supporting members that include lenders, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits, private developers, and government actors. CBN believes strong, inclusive communities are the building blocks for a better St. Louis and works to empower, connect, and celebrate neighborhood and regional leaders who make these places possible.

Jenny has a master's degree in Public Policy Administration with certificates in Nonprofit Management & Leadership and Policy & Program Evaluation from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a B.A. in English from Beloit College. She has long been fascinated by the multifaceted power and potential of stories. While completing her undergraduate degree, Jenny spent her senior year writing an honors thesis that examined gender, social agency, and marriage in Early Modern and Victorian British literature and traced a trajectory of female voices over two centuries as women hungered for and began demanding the right to shape their own destinies. Here and elsewhere, Jenny has seen stories unite, empower, shatter boundaries, and galvanize change. She’s encouraged and inspired by the many individuals and organizations in St. Louis who are working to help marginalized communities amplify their voices, gather strength and momentum from the inside out, and move toward the change they want to achieve.

Prior to entering the community development field, Jenny spent over five years working in distribution, buying, and pricing at Save-A-Lot Food Stores, where her first role as a warehouse supervisor challenged her to rethink what it means to be a responsive, responsible community member and servant-leader. Jenny left the private sector to pursue work that would allow her to connect more deeply with others and to be a bigger part of the change St. Louis is fighting for. She’s been an active volunteer in the community since she moved into the city in 2013 and believes deeply that change will only be possible for our region if we all pull together strategically and pull on the right levers collectively.

Jermaine Brookshire, Jr. is a J.D. Candidate in the Class of 2019 at Washington University School of Law with a focus on corporate law. In his second year of law school, Jermaine was selected to be a Teaching Assistant (TA) for Legal Analysis and Reasoning in which he helped first-year law students hone their legal writing and citation skills. Now, in his third year, he serves as a TA for U.S. Law and Methods and works with LLM students who earned their first law degree outside of the United States and exchange students.

Jermaine earned his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York in 2013. Before going to law school, he served as the Senior Policy Analyst for the Committee on Labor at the New York State Assembly where he worked closely with elected officials to evaluate policy proposals and draft legislation. He also aided the Director of the New York State Senate Democratic Conference Internship Program with program development through his role as Program Advisor.

Above all, Jermaine’s passion is in helping others develop their own sense of purpose so that they too can transcend their circumstances and achieve their dreams despite life’s obstacles. In response, Jermaine founded his own non-profit motivational and personal development organization entitled The Great Expectations Movement, Inc. (GEM). Through his non-profit he conducts workshops for the youth with his goal being to demonstrate the power in taking accountability for one’s life through GEM’s five-step “Gameplan to Success”: 1) Dream, 2) Plan, 3) Execute, 4) Achieve, and 5) Give Back!

Kelsey was born and raised here in Missouri, and while environmental work in the Midwest can constantly feel like an uphill battle, she believes the wisdom and enthusiasm found in the area can foster impactful, lasting change. She studied four years of Strategic Communications at the University of Missouri School of Journalism where she led the climate justice student organization, Mizzou Energy Action Coalition, and co-founded the university’s fossil fuel divestment campaign, ReInvest Mizzou.

Kelsey currently runs the Sustainability Office at Webster University. She joined Webster University in the fall of 2015 as the Sustainability Planner where she has spearheaded the revitalization of the campus Sustainability Coalition, created the university’s first Sustainability Peer Educator program, launched a summer Lunch & Learn series and is the key creator of the campus Bike Share program. She also serves as an adjunct instructor teaching seminar courses on environmental justice and sustainable design.

Previously, Kelsey has held leadership positions and organized with the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Missouri Coalition for Climate Justice. She was the Sustainability Coordinator for the 2015 True/False Film Festival. She currently serves as a mentor in the USGBC’s Green Schools Quest where she advises local K-12 school students and staff in launching grassroots sustainability initiatives at their schools.

She served as a Coach for the Sierra Student Coalition’s 2017/2018 Climate Justice League. Additionally, she has led educational workshops as a trainer for the Sierra Student Coalition’s summer leadership program, SPROG, on topics such as messaging, framing, anti-oppression, entering a community, creating a narrative, and others. Kelsey spends her downtime reading, exploring Missouri state parks, listening to podcasts, and trying out new slow cooker recipes.

Lavoughnda is currently pursuing her MBA at Mary Baldwin and has an undergraduate degree in Communication from Michigan State University. For the last seven years, she’s been working alongside community members, against the odds, towards meaningful community change. Originally from a low-income community in St. Louis, Missouri, she have never settled for other people’s vision of her future. Whether it is fighting for the best life for her mom and siblings, or working on Capitol Hill, building the member community for EMILY’s List, or electing the right candidate, she doesn’t settle.

Lavoughnda is the Co-Founder and Board chair of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Helping Young People Evolve INC (H.Y.P.E). HYPE’s mission is to serve youth in the most vulnerable communities by providing mentoring, leadership development, self-empowerment, and career and college readiness opportunities to prepare youth on a road to success. Currently, she serves as the Board Trustee & Deputy Director, Community Engagement & Advocacy for African Diaspora United, Inc. As well as CEO and founder of Nah, I’m Just Pretty. I’m Just Pretty is a black empowerment brand that addresses colorism and its negative impact in the black community. It promotes black beauty and skin and uplifts a generation of people that were told you’re pretty to be dark skinned. Once she graduates with her MBA, Lavoughnda will be going straight into a Ph.D. program to further advance her education in policy and law.

Liz Kramer oversees the Office for Socially Engaged Practice at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, which serves as a hub and a resource to support collaborative, engaged practices that address systemic social, environmental, and economic challenges in St. Louis. As a human-centered design researcher, Liz explores participatory methods to expose needs and translate them into experiences, services, and environments. She previously worked with clients including Nike, Abbvie, and Vera Bradley. She teaches courses and workshops related to creativity, Design Thinking, and facilitation, in addition to supporting and developing collaborative facilitation processes.

Liz is the self-appointed, unofficial pageant winner of public transportation in St. Louis, Miss MetroLink. In that role, she hosted the inaugural MetroLink Proms and led other advocacy efforts. She is a graduate of Washington University (2008, BS in Mechanical Engineering) and Northwestern University (2012, MS in Engineering Design & Innovation), as well as Archeworks (2011).

Maleeha Ahmad is a public health professional and a fine art photojournalist. She is a Pakistani American Muslim and the daughter of immigrant parents who emphasize education and work within local and global communities. Ms. Ahmad received her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Photography from Augusta University, where she was inspired to pursue opportunities to empower people at the individual and systems levels. Ms. Ahmad’s experience visiting extended family in Pakistan and a medical mission trip to Guatemala demonstrated to her that the populations she would work with are the experts and her responsibility was to help build and extend capacity

As a result, Ms. Ahmad furthered her education with a Masters of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. This experience in academia, along with the political environment, inspired her to refocus and expand her efforts on gender roles, racial inequities and their impact on an individual’s health. Specifically, Ms. Ahmad played an integral role on a project writing about the health effects of racism on Black women and girls. Currently, her career is focused on program evaluation through a systematic lens of institutional and external equity, believing in the power of community engagement for change.

Ms. Ahmad is a 200 hour registered yoga teacher and believes yoga is a tool for increasing resiliency and reducing the effects of short-term and chronic trauma. Ms. Ahmad spoke at the St. Louis Women’s March and was a plaintiff in a case with ACLU Missouri. She is also an active volunteer with WeStories which uses the power of children’s literature to educate White families with the tools needed to work towards a more equitable and inclusive future for St. Louis.

Ms. Ahmad photography encompasses fine art street photography and invites viewers to recognize biases.

Mary Quandt is a public health professional with a decade of experience in research, grant writing, coalition-building, and program evaluation. She currently works at the Behavioral Health Network of Greater St. Louis (BHN), serving as program coordinator for both a SAMHSA-funded grant as well as BHN’s housing collaborative. Prior to BHN, Mary worked with the Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation where she piloted a new standard-of-care intervention to reduce prenatal substance use, helped coordinate a state-wide collaboration of nurse educators, and engaged vulnerable populations in participatory program development. From 2013 to 2015 she served in Albania as a member of the U.S. Peace Corps, working with diverse stakeholder groups – from village clinics to the Ministry of Public Health – to implement USAID-funded training for rural nurses on breast and cervical cancer screening.

Mary received her Master of Public Health from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and her Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society and is an active volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri and the St. Louis Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Program. She loves data, plays the piano tolerably, and usually has entirely too much to say at book club.

Although born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Nay’Chelle Harris has spent her entire adult life in St. Louis and considers the city her second hometown. She is currently the Education Coordinator at the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council (EHOC), where she leads the organization’s fair housing education efforts throughout the St. Louis metro area. Previously, she was a housing policy research fellow at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work, and has worked for community development and economic justice organizations like Dutchtown South Community Corporation, Show Me $15, and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

Deeply committed to housing and economic justice, Nay’Chelle volunteers as a member of Team TIF, a tax incentive reform collective, and Young Friends of the Ville, a board committee of Northside Community Housing, Inc. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies and an MSW in Human Rights and Social Policy from Washington University in St. Louis.

Rebecca Craig, ABA, CFBS is a Financial Planner, Wealth Management Advisor and Certified Family Business Specialist with Synergy Wealth Solutions, an elite financial planning and investment management firm serving the Greater St. Louis area.

Rebecca combines her comprehensive background in economic strategy, statistical modeling, financial accounting, strategic consulting, financial planning and nonprofit development with her own entrepreneurial experience to create, design and implement holistic financial plans for closely-held businesses, families, and individuals.

Rebecca holds the Accredited Business Accountant (ABA) designation awarded by the Accreditation Council for Accountancy and Taxation® (ACAT). She earned the Certified Family Business Specialist (CFBS) designation from The American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Rebecca graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) with her BA and academic concentrations in comparative political science, political economy, public policy, quantitative methodology, gender politics and applied statistics.

Outside the office, Rebecca invests in the Greater St. Louis community by volunteering with charitable organizations and initiatives. She is particularly passionate about causes concerning gender equality, animal welfare, access to financial education and gifted youth.

Rebecca is an Assistant Coach for the Parkway West High School Speech and Debate team and a council member for Yoga Buzz.

A self-proclaimed feline enthusiast, she happily resides in Clayton, Missouri with her Russian-Blue cat companion, Godric.

Roya Massoudnia functions as a political operative and Public Health Student in the Saint Louis Region. She has served as the Political Director for The Saint Louis Young Democrats and has worked on a multitude of political campaigns from city and county to statewide seats.
 

Yvette is a Principal at Cultivation Capital. She works on the firm’s Tech Funds, focusing on business to business software as a service offerings and assists with deal execution, sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio management. Yvette has also worked with various accelerators – she was responsible for developing and managing the deal pipeline for PWE Startup Accelerator, one of the first female-focused accelerators in the country.

She began her professional career through Venture for America as a St. Louis Fellow in 2015.  Beyond her day to day responsibilities, Yvette has held roles as Launch Liaison for VFA and serves as a mentor and judge for various local pitch competitions. She also volunteers with Brazen, Mission St. Louis, and Questbridge.

Yvette grew up in Southern California, where her family still resides and graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Economics & History and is a Venture for America and SEO alumnus.