Staff

Nínive Calegari is the cofounder of 826 Valencia and the CEO of 826 National. She is a veteran public school teacher who has had ten years of classroom experience. Before teaching in her family's hometown in Mexico, Nínive worked at Leadership High School, San Francisco’s first charter school, where she also served on the Board of Directors. She holds an MED in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. Ninive was coauthor of Teachers Have it Easy: the Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers. She was also the recipient of Edutopia’s 2007 Daring Dozen award.

Lauren Hall is Development Director for 826 National. She moved to the Bay Area from Arkansas, where she earned a BA in American Studies from Hendrix College. Before coming to 826, Lauren worked as a development associate at The Women's Project, a nonprofit focusing on social justice issues in Little Rock, Arkansas. An essay that emerged from her work with the organization was published in the Journal of Social Policy in the fall of 2007, and will be included in the forthcoming collection Lessons from the Field: Organizing in Rural Communities. She has been deeply involved in all-things-826 since the summer of 2005.

Ryan Lewis is the Operations Manager for 826 National. After studying Political Science at UCLA, he served for two years in AmeriCorps *NCCC and completed projects with multiple organizations including the Charleston and North Charleston public schools, the St. Matthews Community Outreach Center and After-School Program in Charleston, SC, and various groups performing recovery cleanup after Hurricane Katrina. He received his Master of Public Service degree from the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, AR, where he focused his fieldwork in education and completed projects in program evaluation, development, and strategic planning with the Boys, Girls, Adults Community Development Center in Marvell, AR and the South African Education and Environment Project in Cape Town, South Africa.

Yvonne Wang is 826 National’s Programs Coordinator. Prior to 826, Yvonne worked on various social and educational issues, including launching the national anti-drug advertising campaign, Above the Influence, to lower teen drug usage. She has also taught in Guyana, and still now on the Board of Directors of SAGE, a nonprofit scholarship program promoting higher education in Guyana. In the fall of 2009 she will be starting her MPA in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy at New York University.

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