Laura Hewitt Email and Phone Number

I have extensive experience in children and youth policy, community development, and systems change. My professional career has included serving as Executive Director of Safe Passages, a partnership between Alameda County public agencies, the City of Oakland and the Oakland Unified School District, and Director of Planning and Special Projects for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Children, Youth and Their Families. I have also worked on local and national projects focused on moving families from welfare to self-sufficiency. I have strong strategic planning, facilitation, writing, public speaking and interpersonal skills. I enjoy using these skills to organize groups of people to define common goals, and to help them effectively communicate their purpose and how they will achieve it. Since the birth of my eldest son nearly a decade ago, I have sought opportunities to use my skills as a community volunteer. For the past five years, I greatly enjoyed linking my policy and systems-level experience to the needs of my sons' public elementary school, where I have been a regular classroom volunteer, written grants, chaired fundraisers, and served as chair of the School Site Council for two years. In March 2012, I joined the board of directors for the Napa Valley Education Foundation, in order to use my strategic planning, policy and philanthropic experience to support all schools in the Napa Valley Unified School District. I served as Board President from January 2013 until July 2014. I am relocating to Sacramento, CA in August 2014, and have recently joined the Board of Directors for the Crocker Art Museum Association there.