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Meet our Board of Directors
The board of Community Bridges is committed to diverse and dynamic leadership. We'd like to tell you about the remarkable women and men who give generously of their time and talents to our board.

Schroeder Stribling, Chair, comes to Community Bridges with a background in mental health and nonprofit management. Schroeder has a master's degree in social work from Smith College School for Social Work and an executive certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University. She is presently the Deputy Director for N Street Village, a DC-based organization serving homeless and low-income women. Her particular areas of focus and interest during her career have included women's issues, mental health advocacy, and managing organizational growth and change. Schroeder is delighted to be working with Community Bridges as a Board member: " The mission and programs of Community Bridges are impressive, and their impact is important -- bringing leadership skills and resources for resilience and well-being to the youth participants of CB is a critical investment in the long-term health and integrity of our shared community."

Farrah Short, Vice Chair, is an attorney in the antitrust practice of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. where she devotes a substantial amount of her time to pro bono matters, with a focus on domestic violence and immigration cases. Prior to becoming an attorney, Farrah worked on issues related to gender equality and child welfare reform. She is honored to be a part of an organization that enables girls to find their own voice so that they can develop into young women with the courage to fulfill their dreams. Farrah is active in her church, loves anything chocolate, and enjoys long walks with her husband and their two dogs. She lives with her family in Silver Spring.

Lakeecia Allen has been practicing law for over 5 years since she graduated from the University of Maryland School of law In 2004. LaKeecia currently works at the Office of the County Attorney for Prince George’s County as a litigator. LaKeecia has litigated matters involving Children In Need of Assistance (CINA), constitutional issues, labor, employment and discrimination issues. LaKeecia is a member of Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA) where she sits on section counsel for the Young Lawyers; she is also a member of the labor and employment law section. LaKeecia is a committee member of the Leadership Academy of the MSBA, which is to designed to assist lawyers become better leaders and offering opportunities for future leadership roles in the MSBA. Prior to joining the committee, LaKeecia was a leadership Academy Fellow, where after successful completion of the fellowship she was asked to join the committee. In addition to LaKeecia’s work within the Bar she was the Chair of Young Lawyers for Obama –Prince George’s County and was the Regional Director in Miami for Obama For America. LaKeecia graduated from American University Magna Cum Lade in 2001 and is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

Anna Jeong is senior accountant with Raffa, P.C. and has 13 years of accounting work experience. She currently specializes in outsourcing accounting, serving not-for-profit organizations in District of Columbia. At Raffa, Anna is responsible for multiple clients, financial analysis and reporting, budgeting process, audit assistance, maintaining client's internal control, setting up reporting structure and systems, managing cash flows, and identifying and re-engineering accounting functional areas to improve client's financial output. She has extensive knowledge in various accounting systems and software. Growing up as a minority in the Maryland area, she can identify with the girls in the Community Bridges programs and the importance of the programs in the girls’ lives. She is honored and excited to be part of the board for Community Bridges. Anna graduated from University of Maryland at College Park with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting.

Molly Knopf, Immediate Past Chair, is a social worker who has been advocating on behalf of women and girls for more than 20 years. With experience in the fields of family violence prevention and adolescent health, Molly brings programmatic expertise, management, and fundraising skills to the Community Bridges board. Providing an empowering environment and award-winning programs to girls in the Silver Spring and Takoma Park communities inspires Molly to be a part of the incredible Community Bridges organization. In her spare time, Molly reads, swims, and travels.

June Melvin Mickens is an attorney and serves as president and chief executive officer of Executive Advantage, LLC. Prior to launching Executive Advantage, June was chief administrative officer of Social & Scientific Systems, Inc. Previously, she held key positions with the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, JMM Consulting, Service Design Associates/Tier Technologies, the National Association of Black Accountants, and the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. She also was an adjunct professor for several years at the Howard University School of Social Work. Currently, June is a member of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the Women’s Advisory Board of the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, and both the women’s and children’s ministries at her church. June is honored to be a part of the Community Bridges board, an organization that is making such a critical impact on young women in Silver Spring.

Jennifer Nettles,

Jeannette O'Connor comes to Community Bridges with a background in communications and advocacy consulting for progressive causes. She is currently the managing partner at Woodside Park Strategies where she specializes in creating, designing and implementing integrated media outreach plans and messages that make complex issues understandable to the public. Jeannette has worked on issues as diverse as health care, reproductive rights, employee benefit packages, poverty, child welfare, and workers’ rights and has over 15 years of experience developing messaging, building broad bipartisan coalitions, and achieving results designed to produce change. Over the past year and a half as managing partner at Woodside Park Strategies she has served a number of clients including, the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Virginia Health Care Foundation, the Council on Excellence in Government and Up2Us, the leading national coalition focused on youth sports and development.

Before consulting on her own, Jeannette was a vice president at Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns (GMMB), a communications firm specializing in advertising, public relations, partnership development, and coalition building for Fortune 500 companies, major non-profit organizations, and the world’s largest foundations, trade associations, and coalitions. At GMMB, she focused on policy communications and public relations for clients including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Covering Kids & Families Campaign and Cover the Uninsured Week and First Focus for Children & Families, a project of the America’s Promise Alliance. She also managed GMMB’s strategic communications work for the Association for Maternal and Child Health Programs, and the re-launch of the Union Plus Credit Card for the AFL-CIO.

Prior to joining GMMB, Jeannette was the child health outreach project director at the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). She played a major role in the development of CDF's messaging and outreach efforts after passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Jeannette holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from American University in Washington, D.C.

Andrea Del Pinal

If you share our board members' belief in the importance of empowering disadvantaged girls, and have skills that will help our board increase its effectiveness, please contact us at info@communitybridges-md.org. Thank you!