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About TCA
Joe Calabrese
Acting COO, Marketing and Development Manager
Joe’s primary responsibilities include marketing and development coordination. Joe manages our website and coordinates the processes for our donors, staff and volunteers to keep the organization’s database functioning at an optimal level. Joe ensures communication with our donors are done effectively and efficiently. Prior to working with The Children’s Agenda, Joe has a twenty-five year career in leadership positions with nonprofits such as the Urban League of Rochester, Hillside Children’s Foundation, and the United Way of Washington County in Wisconsin. Joe has a Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising from Penn State University and lives in Fairport with his wife and children. In his spare time, Joe is a curler and serves as the play by play voice for USA Curling for many of their national championships.
Jackie Campbell
Alliance Director, ROC the Future
Jackie leads an alliance of leading Rochester-area institutions and community partners working with the Rochester City School District to promote alignment of strategies, resources, and accountability for improving the academic achievement of Rochester’s children. Before joining The Children’s Agenda, Jackie worked for the City of Rochester for over 28 years, including 4 years as Assistant Commissioner in the Department of Recreation and Youth Services. Jackie is a Steering Committee member of several initiatives, including the Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative (RMAPI), Systems Integration, and the Racial Equity Justice Initiative (REJI). She is also active in several community efforts, including the Black Women’s Leadership Forum, Parent Leadership Training Institute, and the Black Agenda Group (BAG). She’s received numerous community awards including: “Outstanding Leader in the African American Community” by Rochester A.B.O.V.E.; Teen Empowerment’s “Champion for Youth” leadership award, and Action for a Better Community’s “Signature Citizen of the Year” award. She has an Associate degree in Business Administration from Monroe Community College, a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from SUNY Empire State College, and a Master’s degree in Management Science from Keuka College. Jackie and her husband have six adult children—four proud graduates of the Rochester City School District—and 13 grandchildren.
Brigit Hurley
Advocacy Director
Brigit has primary responsibility for our annual, detailed analyses of the proposed City, County, and State budgets, and directs our budget advocacy efforts. She leads our data collection and maintenance efforts, keeping us up-to-date on children’s outcome indicators. Brigit also staffs The Children’s Agenda’s Interfaith Collaborative and its year-round advocacy activities, anchored by the annual Children’s Interfaith Weekend in October. Brigit serves on a number of issue-based coalitions such as the Greater Rochester After-School Alliance (GRASA) and Roc/ACTS Education Task Force. She came to TCA from Catholic Family Center, where she spent ten years in the Office of Social Policy working on issue advocacy and faith-based education and outreach on topics such as poverty, children’s mental health, and immigration reform. Prior to that, she served as Coordinator of the Rochester Toy Library for SPCC and the Junior League. Brigit earned a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. Brigit lives in Scottsville, NY with her husband and 4 children.
Jeff Kaczorowski, MD
Senior Advisor
Jeffrey is a Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair for Government and Community Relations at Golisano Children’s Hospital at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Prior to Jeff’s 13-year tenure with The Children’s Agenda, he co-founded the nationally award-winning Pediatric Links with the Community (PLC) program at the University of Rochester, now known as the Hoekelman Center for Leadership in Community Health. Jeff is currently the Director of the American Academy of Pediatrics National Community Pediatrics Training Initiative which promotes training activities that empower future pediatricians to become leaders in improving the health of all children in their communities, through community-based and child advocacy efforts across the United States. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a M.D from the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry.
Tanishia Johnson
Family and Community Empowerment Manager, ROC the Future
Tanishia builds relationships between ROC the Future and key stakeholders and partners, including leaders in health, education, business, non-profit and economic development. Tanishia’s background includes a 13-year career in the Rochester City School District holding various roles such as school counselor, Student and Family Support Center Coordinator and College Coach. As Coordinator of programs for expectant and parenting students; she instituted the first parenting class in the Rochester City School District for expectant and parenting students. Tanishia holds a bachelor’s of science degree in psychology and MS.Ed Counseling from The College at Brockport. She sits on the Board of Directors for Healthy Baby Network, is one of the Founding leaders of PittsfordSoars, and is President of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., Theta Alpha Zeta Chapter. She’s been featured in the Democrat and Chronicle as Rochester’s “Woman to Watch”, BreakThru Magazine’s Power List: The Top 10 Women in Rochester making history, is the recipient of the BreakThru’s Inspiration Award, the 2018 ROC Award for Outstanding Community Involvement and the Susan B. Anthony Award for her advocacy work for women and girls. She was also featured on News 8 Extraordinary People and received the Get to 50/50 award.
Ryan Lavoie
Administrative/ Grants Assistant, ROC the Future
Ryan works closely with the ROC the Future Alliance Director to provide high-level administrative and financial maintenance support, as well as critical communications to key leader partners and stakeholders in the community. Before joining the team at ROC the Future, Ryan’s experience focused on brand marketing and human resources, where among other responsibilities, he successfully led an inclusion initiative tasked with diversifying the hiring process for a top Fortune 500 company. Ryan dedicates his spare time to volunteer work in the community, ranging from stage-managing local theatre productions to providing aid at various food banks. His remaining time is spent relaxing with his schnauzer, Lady, and a good book.
Jessica Lewis
Communications Specialist, ROC the Future
Jessica leads ROC the Future’s communications initiatives by developing and executing comprehensive, integrated communications for cross-sector partners, conveners, community stakeholders, parents and families. She also serves as the coordinator of the annual State of Our Children Address. In 2018, she was named a finalist for the ATHENA Young Professional Award. Prior to joining ROC the Future, Jessica served as the Communications Specialist for the Urban-Suburban Transfer Program. In that role, she developed content for the program’s publications, social media accounts, and website. She also served as the director of after-school programs at the Urban League of Rochester from 2008-2012, where she coordinated five college & career programs serving Rochester area youth, and managed a budget of $400,000. Jessica received her bachelor’s degree from Buffalo State College in Social Studies Education grades 7-12 and a master’s degree in Teaching and Curriculum from the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education at the University of Rochester.
Larry Marx
Chief Executive Officer
Larry joined the organization in 2011. He has overseen The Children’s Agenda’s growth from 4 employees to a staff of 14 and a budget of over $1.3M. Larry is a Board member of the Partnership for America’s Children (and its former co-chair), a national federation of 53 state and local children’s advocacy groups in 42 states. He is an appointed member of the Governor’s Child Care Availability Task Force and also the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council. He serves on the Executive Committee, Steering Committee and as Policy Committee Co-Chair of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative. Larry represents The Children’s Agenda as one of ROC the Future’s conveners and serves on its Executive Committee. Larry was honored by Action for a Better Community and the Rochester chapter of the National Council for Jewish Women for his advocacy work with The Children’s Agenda. Prior to his family settling in Rochester, Larry was Executive Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin for 12 years, Program Officer for the Proteus Fund, and Executive Director of the Donor Collaborative of Wisconsin. He has participated in over 100 issue advocacy and election campaigns. Larry is married to Deb Rosen, Executive Director of Bivona Child Advocacy Center. Together they are the proud parents of two teenage daughters, Natalie and Naomi.
Pete Nabozny
Director of Policy
Pete leads our work to develop and introduce policies and practices that improve outcomes for children. This includes systems building efforts with other organization, identifying evidence based programs that could be helpful in our community, analyzing public policy challenges in the community, and promoting innovative approaches for home visitation, early care and education, early intervention, summer learning, child welfare, juvenile justice, and anti-poverty efforts. Pete was previously Associate Principal with the Center for Governmental Research, where he managed and contributed to a diverse set of projects in the human services and nonprofit sectors, including the viability of mobile summer meals programs in Rochester, Reconnect Rochester’s work on transportation and poverty, and the Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiatives in Oswego and Jamestown. Prior to that, Pete served as Assistant Commissioner of Research and Evaluation with the New York City Administration of Children’s Services, and in senior positions with the Jewish Child Care Association of New York City. Pete is a University of Rochester graduate, and earned his Masters in Public and Nonprofit Administration from the Robert Wagner School of Public Service. Pete and his wife Lindsay are the proud parents of daughters Lucy and Ruth.
Kristen Rogers
Advocacy Coordinator
She brings to The Children’s Agenda an over 20 year career in Early Education as both a home care provider and most recently, as the Director of Generations Child Care. Kristen has a Bachelor’s Degree in Childcare Administration from Empire State College and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Medaille College. In her spare time she mentors teen girls, is a Troop Leader for the Girl Scouts and serves on the Board at Samaritan Center of Excellence. A mother of three and grandmother of two, Kristen also has taken an interest in the sport of archery.
Eamonn Scanlon
Education Policy Manager
Eamonn increases public transparency, awareness and accountability in the RCSD budget development and approval process; identifies policy, expenditure, and funding alternatives to maximize opportunities for RCSD students’ success; and fuels parents’ and residents’ engagement to win changes in policy, expenditures and funding that best promote evidence-based strategies and programs in Pre-K — 12 settings. Eamonn has been an Education Organizer in Rochester with Citizen Action of New York, where he designed the study analyzing the RCSD’s data on school discipline. He also helped rewrite the RCSD Code of Conduct. Prior to his position at Citizen Action, Eamonn worked with the Detroit Standards and Accountability Commission, researching and producing a report on college readiness indicators for an on-track dashboard used in 12 Detroit-area high schools. Eamonn graduated from SUNY-Binghamton and earned his Masters of Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Camille Simmons
Manager of Continuous Improvement, ROC the Future
Camille Simmons is the Manager of Continuous Improvement for ROC the Future. Camille works directly with our stakeholder groups to develop and implement process improvement to accelerate the impacts of our work.
Camille previously served in various capacities focused on youth intervention work, most recently as Operations Manager for a local non- profit agency. In her previous role, Camille oversaw a team dedicated to the agency’s youth employment, academic, college readiness, and career-based services and partnerships, as well as provided project oversight for multiple special projects.
Camille is Lean Six Sigma certified and received her bachelor’s degree from Keuka College in Social Work. She received a master’s degree in Strategic Leadership at Roberts Wesleyan College. She is a 2010 graduate of the United Way’s African American Leadership Development Program and a 2015 graduate of Leadership Rochester, where she returns each year to serve on their Building Common Ground panel focused on race and equity.
Carmen Torres
Parent Advocacy Coordinator
Carmen has a love of music, dance, culture and community.
Carmen was born in Villalba, Puerto Rico and moved to New York and eventually Rochester as a child. She started her career as a Paraprofessional for the Rochester City School District. She fell in love with her job and was encouraged to continue learning and growing as an educator. Before joining The Children’s Agenda, Carmen spent 30 plus years as a highly effective Parent Liaison; working with a variety of parents, students, building concrete relationships with neighborhood agencies as well as designing programs and events for her parents.
This makes her perfect in her position as TCA’s Parent Advocacy Coordinator, where her goal is to gain positive parental interest and trust for her work within The Children’s Agenda and the Rochester City School District.
Stephanie Townsend, PhD
Director of Research Analytics, ROC the Future
Before joining ROC the Future, Stephanie worked for 12 years as a consultant to community based and educational organizations. Her work included projects here in Rochester as well as for state, national, and global organizations. She also taught as an adjunct instructor in undergraduate and graduate programs at St. John Fisher College, Nazareth College, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the College at Brockport. Stephanie has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Religious Studies from the University of Michigan, a Master’s degree in social ethics from the Graduate Theological Union, and Master’s and Doctoral degrees in community and prevention research from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As a community psychologist, she has been widely published and is recognized as an expert on community-based responses to violence, including violence prevention. Stephanie grew up in a military family, attending public and Department of Defense schools around the country and overseas. She and her husband have one son in middle school.
Michelle Yale
Administrative Director
Michelle manages all administrative, operational, and financial activities for the organization, including high-level oversight of finances, budget, payroll and human resources. She serves as the staff liaison to the Board of Directors. Michelle has more than 25 years advanced administrative experience and she has been with the organization since its inception in 2004. Michelle lives in Honeoye, NY with her husband and 2 active teenagers.
