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SCC Staff and Board of Directors

Staff Biographies

Helen Corrigan

Helen joined SCC in September 2008 as assistant to the business manager. Prior to joining SCC, Helen worked as a health care administrator. An active and longtime Somerville resident, Helen was a member of SCC's Board of Directors from 1996 to 2008. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services, Somerville Living Wage Committee and the Somerville Board of Health, and she currently serves as vice president of the Board of Trustees for the Somerville Home. In addition, Helen was a Somerville Alderman at Large from 1985 to 1995. Helen and her husband John are the proud parents of five children, and grandparents of nine grandchildren.

Thais DeMarco

Thais, who grew up in Brazil and moved to Massachusetts in 2005, taught English as a foreign language for 11 years in her home country before joining SCC. Teaching is Thais' passion, and she brings her enthusiasm for sharing knowledge to her work at SCC. Thais works on two different, yet interrelated, fronts: homelessness prevention and asset building. The former involves working in coordination with other agencies to secure funding to prevent evictions and/or utility shut-offs. The latter includes a variety of asset-building tools such as financial classes, homebuyer education and individual development accounts.

Cecily Harwitt

Cecily grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Somerville from Chicago in 2009. In her ever-Eastward journey, she has witnessed over and over the unfair power that corporations hold over society, the government and individuals. She started to see the potential of grassroots organizing and collective action to alter that imbalance while studying the community of informal itinerant vendors on the subway in Buenos Aires, Argentina for her senior thesis. Though our problems are global, she believes that change starts at the community level and loves having the opportunity to organize Somerville residents around good local jobs. In addition to her work at SCC, she is a Jewish Organizing Initiative fellow and a member of the Boston Interpreters Collective.

Courtney Koslow

Courtney is Senior Project Manager in SCC's Real Estate Development Department. As a project manager, Courtney orchestrates the process of financing, zoning, designing, renovating or constructing and lease-up of the affordable housing that SCC develops. She is currently overseeing the new construction of Saint Polycarp Village Apartments, and previously oversaw the renovation of 109 Gilman Street. Courtney also works on asset management, planning for the financial and physical health of the buildings, and addressing issues that may arise at SCC’s properties. Prior to working at SCC, Courtney served as Special Assistant for Policy at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, a quasi-public state-level organization that helps increase the supply of affordable housing in Massachusetts. When she's not immersed in the development of affordable housing, you can find Courtney biking and walking the streets of Somerville and Boston, enjoying live music, cooking locally grown food or discussing how to live more naturally and sustainably.

Danny LeBlanc

Chief Executive Officer and lifelong Massachusetts resident, Danny moved to Somerville in 1977 after earning his bachelor's degree from University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has worked in community organizing, community development and nonprofit management over the past 30 years. Somerville United Neighborhoods, Mass. Fair Share, North Shore Community Action Programs and Merrimack Valley Project are among the several nonprofit organizations in eastern Massachusetts at which he has worked. Danny has served as SCC's chief executive officer since 2001. He also serves on the boards of the Somerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Metro North Regional Employment and the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), for which he is also a former board chair. He teaches classes in nonprofit management and community development at Cambridge College. When not at SCC, Danny spends time with his wife, three daughters and four grandchildren.

Shannon LeBlanc

Shannon LeBlanc started at SCC in November 2006 working as the Administrative and Financial Assistant. After her graduation from Framingham State College in May of 2009 she continued to work at SCC and in January of 2010 she got a job at SCC as the Marketing and Communications Coordinator. Shannon has lived in Somerville all of her life. Her passion is working with kids and she spends much of her free time with her nieces and nephews.

Meridith Levy

Meridith joined SCC's staff in 2003 as Director of Community Organizing, after holding the same position at Twin Cities CDC in Fitchburg. She started organizing in Minnesota with family farmers in the mid-90s. Meridith received master's degrees at Tufts University from the UEP and AFE programs. Meridith specializes in organizing around land use issues, and has led community participatory planning processes, including the Plymouth Street Initiative in Fitchburg, the ESI in Somerville and, currently, the Green Line Community Corridor Planning Project. She is committed to employing participatory and popular education methodologies as a means to inspire community action. Meridith is also keenly interested in community food security, kayaking and cross country skiing as well as being a brand-new mom.

Mashael Majid

Mashael joins us from California and is excited to be working with such an eclectic and committed group of people in Somerville. She recently earned her master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on community development and sustainability. She has experience organizing with diverse communities on issues related to environmental justice, youth empowerment, and housing displacement. Adhering to the ideology that transformative power comes from below, she finds Somerville residents resilient in their efforts towards creating just spaces for and by the people! When not working, you can find her supporting the UCLA Bruins, reading a good book, or catching up on missed ‘80s pop culture references via celebrity reality shows.

Mary Regan

Mary is a community organizer at SCC. She staffs the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee (AHOC) and facilitates SCC's involvement in community corridor planning around the Green Line extension. Mary grew up in a large working-class family and learned early that justice and fairness need to be fought for and that there is power in numbers of people working together. Mary has found ways to incorporate and expand on those learnings in various struggles for justice: with unemployed workers in Philadelphia and factory workers in Brazil, by organizing tenants for housing justice in Boston and Cambridge and by engaging activists in local peace organizations in discussions about racism. Mary enjoys dancing, swimming, singing in groups and just hanging out.

MaryAnn Sclafani

MaryAnn joined the SCC staff in April 2002. She is responsible for administrative functions, including budgets and contracts, accounting and finance. MaryAnn is proud to support the staff at SCC who devote themselves to enriching the lives of Somerville residents.

Jeremy Wilkening

Jeremy has a wealth of experience in affordable and mixed-income housing real estate development. Prior to joining SCC as the director of real estate development, Jeremy worked at Corcoran Jennison on large mixed-income urban redevelopment projects, primarily in Connecticut. Before Corcoran Jennison, Jeremy worked as a director of real estate development for a community-based not-for-profit in New York. In this role, Jeremy created a pipeline of rental and ownership-affordable housing projects equal to over $20 million of capital. Prior to that, Jeremy worked at Mercy Housing California on a variety of complex affordable rental projects. top

SCC Board of Directors

President	Ezra Haber Glenn
Vice President	Stephanie Toews-Moeling
Treasurer	Glenn Morgan
Clerk	Jeannette Amazeen Thomas
Directors	Cassie Arnaud Katjana Ballantyne Fred Berman Regina Bertholdo Mary Jo Connelly Van Hardy Beatrice Kwaa Adriana Lafaille Janine Lotti Diane Machado Libby Mahaffy Adam Rich Josh Wairi Mulugeta Zegeye

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