A Time to Plant

By Sophia Wambach | January 29, 2018

As I’m sure you’ve noticed from our previous newsletters, we’ve been adding to our staff. What’s amazing is that God has sent every one of these wonderful and talented people our way in response to our expressed needs.

Here are a few more new faces!

Pam P. May is our Program Coordinator with Children Rising’s Science Horizons Math Tutoring program. She has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Phoenix in Organizational Management, a Bachelor of Science from the University of Washington, and a Public Service Leadership Certificate from U.C. Berkeley Extension. Her varied career includes communications and marketing, business development, as well as education and training. Pam has been steadily strengthening our math curriculum, exploring effective methods of teaching math, networking with community partners, and working on growing our team of math tutors.

Jessie Palmatier is our Finance and Administration Assistant, lending her skills to the areas of financial development and office management. She is a Bay Area transplant who fell in love with the East Bay while serving in urban missions in college. She has a degree in Youth Ministry and has spent the last several years working with teenagers in the foster care system in Upstate New York. Thanks to Jessie, we’ve been to able to accomplish a few long overdue projects and it’s been less than one month since she has been hired!

Eric Steckel, our Communications Manager, is actually not a new face in our office! He was appointed after a long period of volunteering and mentoring youth at Children Rising . He brings a wealth of experience in both traditional and digital communications. Eric is a graduate of Bucknell University and holds a Master’s Degree in Communication from the American University in Washington, D.C. Prior to Children Rising, he served as the communications manager at Catholic Charities of the East Bay. In the last 6 months, Eric has enhanced our fundraising communications. In addition, he is developing our digital and social media presence and is working on making our newsletter more streamlined and informative.

As you can see, our new hires are already bearing fruit and we are excited for what God has planned for us and the East Bay!

If you’d like to meet all of our current staff, visit www.children-rising.org/staff.

Children Rising staff: (top row) Rebecca Buckley, Jim Wambach, Rebekah Wilson, Eric Steckel, Dave Sundman, Ashley Verinsky, Margena Wade-Green, Michelle Hutcherson, Charlotte Martinez, (bottom row) Gwen Stephens, Brenda Paulin, Kim Farnham-Flom, Pearl Wang, Chelsea Boniak, Pam May, Carolyn Piraino