Our Founding
In late 2008, Kate Barnhart reached out to a small group of her friends and associates to discuss creating a new group to serve the homeless youth population in New York City. Kate recognized from her years of involvement with this population that there was an unfilled need for continuous and consistent case management. Meeting that need would help youth in all stages of homelessness embark or progress on the path to self sufficiency. Under Kate’s leadership, that small group of like-minded but diverse individuals reached out to their networks to assemble a program of case management and life skills education.
Our Growth
At our first activity, we attracted only a handful of participants and expected very slow growth as no outreach was planned. It quickly became obvious that word-of-mouth would dramatically increase the size of our groups. Our typical Sunday meal is approaching 50 participants a week, with life skills group consistently exceeding 25 participants. In April of 2010, we were impressed to learn that we had served a hot meal to more than 300 unique participants.
Our Board
Take a moment to review the bios of our current Board Members.
Board Members
Karen Ramspacher, President^
Business professional with more than 15 years experience running projects in the private sector, including budgeting, research, project management, communications, public relations, and advertising/marketing. Prior to joining the private sector, worked in non-profits focusing on healthcare and politics, primarily for low-income and access-challenged clients. Prior Board experience with The Lower Eastside Girls Club in Manhattan, for more than 2 years, including participation in Capital Campaign and ongoing programming fundraising efforts.
Geoffrey Ream, Vice-President^
Geoffrey L. Ream, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Adelphi University School of Social Work in Garden City, Long Island, and a federally funded Principal Investigator associated with the Institute for Special Populations Research at the National Development and Research Institutes in Manhattan. He teaches evidence-based practice and statistics, and his published articles and conference presentations are about LGBT youth issues, HIV risk, and marijuana use. Dr. Ream has provided “technical support” to initiatives for homeless LGBT youth since Fall 2005, including two years (2006-07) as volunteer coordinator for Sylvia’s Place Shelter, faculty advisor of an ongoing evaluation study of Trinity Place Shelter, and creator of process and outcome evaluation instruments for Sylvia’s Place, Trinity Place, and New Alternatives.
Megan Massey, Treasurer^
Kate Barnhart, Executive Director^
M.S. in clinical psychology with a focus on trauma. 16 years experience working with at-risk youth. 16 years experience grant-writing. 5 years experience as the Director of Sylvia’s Place, a harm-reduction emergency shelter for homeless LGBT youth.
Toby Grace^
Education: BA, College of New Jersey
MA (History) University of Delaware (don’t ask me the dates ’cause I won’t tell! Miss Channing is ageless!)
In addition to 30 years as a teacher on both secondary and college levels, I’ve worked in a lumber camp in northern Maine, run a medicine show on the county fair circuit though New England and the Midwest for 3 years, been a circus wagon designer and builder for such clients as Big apple Circus and Six Flags (Great Adventure) am a certified interior designer and a commercially published writer of sci-fi/fantasy.(Analog magazine, Ballantine Books, and more) It’s been a busy life! For the last ten years I’ve been senior editor of Out In Jersey magazine (www.outinjersey.net) N.J.’s largest LGBT publication and one of the largest regional LGBT magazines in the U.S.
My civil unioned husband of almost 16 wonderful years is Mike Pettyjohn. Mike is an artist specializing in airbrush and animation and a graduate of Philadelphia College of Art. One of Mike’s pieces is in the permanant collection of MOMA. Mike, together with our four “adopted” sons and their long-term boyfriends, all now in or through college, make up our gay family. Mike & I live in Trenton, in a big old Victorian with way too many books and way too many antiques and a delightful little cat, who is pretty much the adult in charge.
Jeff Mummert^
Jeff has been involved with various projects supporting LGBT Homeless Youth in New York City for the past seven years, initially through volunteering at Sylvia’s Place shelter at MCC, and then as the volunteer coordinator for an interfaith initiative in which five local Churches participated in provided shelter space for 50 LGBT youth during the coldest winter months of January and February. He was instrumental in extend this winter shelter program into a year-round transitional shelter space at “Sylvia’s East,” which provided supervised shared living space and meals for six LGBT youth from February 2007 through June 2008.
Jeff is an Elder of Middle Collegiate Church, where he serves as Treasurer, and he is also a member of the Investments and Endowment Committee of The Collegiate Church Corporation.
He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Penn State University, and has over 20 years of professional experience in the technology & application software industry. He is currently employed by Salesforce.com as a Principal Sales Engineer, and resides in the Chelsea/Flatiron district of Manhattan.
