Alaina believes in community foundations’ impactful role as leaders, listeners, and partners with community change-makers. As Program Coordinator, she coordinates and supports CFLeads’ project and program logistics.
Before joining the CFLeads team, Alaina worked for nearly a decade in program coordination and management at nonprofit organizations rooted in youth development. She believes deeply in building long-term relationships with families in her community and making an impact through community service. After attending Northeastern University in Boston, where she earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism with a Spanish minor, Alaina served three terms as an AmeriCorps member with City Year Boston, Hardy Girls Healthy Women in Maine, and Trekkers in Maine. These experiences compelled her to attend SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont, to pursue a Master’s in Intercultural Service, Leadership and Management, with a concentration in Youth Program Leadership.
During Alaina’s 6-year tenure at Trekkers, she led dozens of middle school and high school educational expeditions across the country as an element of its long-term programming designed to build resiliency and create a safety net of support for youth in her community. In 2018, she moved to Florida to help launch Florida Dreamcatchers, a new organization in Immokalee that is adapting and expanding the Trekkers comprehensive long-term youth mentoring model to raise aspirations and resiliencies in Immokalee youth.