Hillary Jones

Girls Rock RI

Jones is the executive director of Girls Rock RI, a volunteer-based non-profit that uses music creation and critical thinking to foster empowerment, collaborative relationships, and the development of healthy identities in girls and women.

Toni Marie Roderick

Mt. Hope Learning Center 

Roderick is executive director of the Mt. Hope Learning Center in Providence.

She has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 25 years, mostly in the Providence area.

She joined the Mt. Hope Learning Center as executive director in June 2015.

Christopher Lauth 

Youth Pride RI

Lauth is YPI’s 5th Executive Director, having joined the organization in June of 2016. 

Originally from New Jersey, he moved to RI five years ago to assume the position of Assistant Director of Diversity Programs at the Rhode Island School of Design. 

Renee Brissette 

Society of St. Vincent de Paul 

SVDP Rhode Island’s Executive Director, Brissette, a Rhode Island college alumni, has worked in the non-profit sector for most of her life.  

Brissette, the only full-time, paid employee of SVDP Rhode Island, with help from a dedicated board, oversees the workings of 32 parish-based conferences housing 19 food pantries and 7 meal sites with 650 volunteers who daily serve their neighbors in need across the State of Rhode Island. Last year, SVDP Rhode Island provided over $2.3 million in food and close to $1 million in direct assistance to Rhode Islanders in need.  

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is a volunteer-based, international, non-profit organization serving the poor and marginalized in more than 150 countries, across 5 continents, and does not discriminate as it works towards systemic change. 

SVDP has been serving Rhode Islanders since 1858.

Pega Rahmanian 

Youth in Action 

Rahmanian is the executive director of Youth in Action. 

She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College in Anthropology, Comparative American Studies, and Gender and Women Studies; and a M.A. from Wright State University in Sociology. She loves the outdoors and indulging in the wild, uses cooking as therapy, has an affinity for soup, playgrounds, and 90’s hip-hop and soul, she collects things like unsharpened pencils, spinning tops, rocks, and abandoned matchbox cars. 

Jo-Ann Schofield

RI Mentoring Partnership

Schofield is the President and CEO of the RI Mentoring Partnership. A staff member since 1997, she has more than a decade of experience in mentoring, training and facilitation.

As President and CEO, she is responsible for the strategic direction of the Partnership, day-to-day operations including fiscal and grant management, as well as staff supervision.

Debra Sharpe 

Brain Injury Association of Rhode Island

Sharpe is the Executive Director, who came to work in the nonprofit field by chance. Having always been involved in volunteering, causes and community organizations, her first nonprofit job was with the American Heart Association in Illinois and Missouri as a field representative. She can't imagine doing other work.

Linda Weisinger

Pawtucket-Central Falls Development (PCF)

Weisinger joined PCF Development as Executive Director in May of 2015.  She brings over 20 years experience in affordable housing and homeownership development. She was the chair of the Housing Network's Homeownership Committee from 2008 to 2015.  

Jocelynn White 

Books are Wings 

Jocelynn White earned her M.Ed. in Special Education and a B.S. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of New Hampshire. She later taught in the Oyster River Cooperative school district as a Special Educator focusing as a literacy and behavior management specialist. In 2006, she and her family moved to Rhode Island where she began working as the Volunteer Coordinator for Books Are Wings.

With her experience in literacy and a background in motivating children to develop a love for learning, she became the Program Director in 2008. Now the Director of Books Are Wings, Jocelynn is involved with all aspects of Books Are Wings programs, increasing programming from 20 book parties a year to 50, and increasing revenue over fifty percent over the past two years.  

PHOTO: YWCA RI

Henrietta White-Holder

Higher Ground International

Henrietta White-Holder is the founder of Higher Ground International.

White-Holder narrowly escaped the civil war that tore apart her native Liberia for much of the 1990s. She arrived in Providence as a teenager to help her sister take care of a growing family.

She went on to work in human services, running group homes for 18 years, and has an intimate understanding of the struggles that people on both sides of the Liberian diaspora experience.

Diana Burdett

Providence In-town Churches Association

Burdett has been the Executive Director of the Providence In-town Churches Association since 2003, overseeing five program areas, grant-writing, and case management. She also was a past president of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless from 2005 to 2008.