Our Team

Charles E. Allen III, MSPH
Board Director

Charles Allen is President of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association (HCNA). Founded in 1981, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association is a neighborhood organization in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, whose mission is to improve the living conditions and serve the needs of its residents, preserve cultural and architectural heritage, serve as a clearinghouse for information, and actively represent the interests of the neighborhood with city, state and federal agencies, private businesses, community organizations, and individuals, for the purpose of improving the community. As HCNA President, Mr. Allen has helped to spearhead multiple restoration and recovery efforts in the Holy Cross/Lower Ninth ward community. Mr. Allen has been an active REACH NOLA partner since its inception in April 2006. Mr. Allen co-leads the Sustainability Workshop Project and sits on the Health and Resilience Project Council.

Katrina Badger, GSW, MSW, MPH
Health and Language Access Program Manager

Katrina Badger began at REACH NOLA as an intern in January 2008 and has been an active member of the team since that time. Ms. Badger is dedicated to improving access to and involvement in high quality mental health and health care services by individuals with limited English proficiency. She trains medical and community interpreters, supports health, mental health and social service organizations in developing and implementing language services, and co-chairs the Language Access Coalition. Ms. Badger received dual master degrees in public health and social work from Tulane University. During her studies she both provided counseling services in Spanish and developed Latino health education sessions and community discussions in Spanish. Before moving to New Orleans, Ms. Badger was a Fulbright Fellow in Thailand, where she conducted research on the impact of support from and relationships with family, community and lay-health workers on the health and well-being of individuals and families impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Mariel Boyarsky
Community Health Outreach Fellow

Mariel Boyarsky graduated from Vassar College with a BA in Gender Studies and Linguistics in May 2009. She moved to New Orleans in August 2009 to begin a fellowship at REACH NOLA through AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps, an organization that partners its fellows with service providers, such as REACH NOLA, which address issues of urban poverty. Between September 2009 and August 2010, Ms. Boyarsky will support a number of REACH NOLA projects, including the MHIT Project, the Health and Resilience Project and the Health and Language Access Program. She will also work with REACH NOLA partners on other projects related to improving health equity, community health and access to quality health care. In addition to working at REACH NOLA, Ms. Boyarsky will spend the year living with nine other AVODAH fellows placed at various nonprofit organizations throughout the city. The ten fellows will engage in communal living and in studies and discussions of social activism and social change.

Brittany Butler
Executive Director

Brittany Butler began working with REACH NOLA in April of 2007 and was named Executive Director in April of 2008. Since graduating from Yale in 2004, Ms. Butler has dedicated her career to facilitating multi-stakeholder initiatives that improve community health, quality of life and the quality of health services for all people. Prior to working as Executive Director of REACH NOLA in a full-time capacity, Ms. Butler worked for the RAND Corporation as a Research Assistant and Director of Partnership Initiatives in New Orleans, where she contributed to the development and management of REACH NOLA's early programs. Ms. Butler also has worked in Los Angeles at UCLA Health Services Research Center, employing Community Based Participatory Research methods to develop, implement, analyze and disseminate health programs to increase quality of health care and decrease stigma associated with mental health services. Through her work in these academic settings, Ms. Butler has published scientific articles related to power-sharing dynamics in community-academic partnerships for health, improving the quality of mental health care in the U.S., and the cost of providing quality mental health care in post-disaster settings. In addition to being Executive Director of REACH NOLA, she is also Program Manager of the Health and Resilience Project.

Larry Campbell
Board Director

Larry Campbell is a minister of Israelite Baptist Church in the Central City community. Founded in 1945, Israelite Baptist Church of Central City New Orleans has generated a wealth of resources and initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life for residents in the Central City community including after-school tutoring, computer literacy, mentoring, counseling, recreational activities for children, health classes, feeding the hungry, health fairs, referrals to other agencies and outreach programs. Through his ministry at Israelite Baptist as well as a strong personal commitment to seeing positive change in his neighborhood, Reverend Campbell has forged strong, lasting partnerships that honor the diverse perspectives of Central City residents and strive to meet community needs. Reverend Campbell has been an active REACH NOLA partner since its inception in April 2006. Currently, he is a Board Director and co-leads the Health and Resilience and New Orleans VideoVoice Projects.

Jolon McNeil
Office Manager/Administration

Jolon McNeil has dedicated her career in education and non-profits to student achievement through equity advocacy and social policy work. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from American University in Washington DC, Jolon began her career teaching Spanish at Rabouin High School in New Orleans. After the storm, she continued her teaching career at charter schools in Philadelphia and Washington, DC. She then returned to New Orleans to work as a Youth Advocate with the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana and as an administrator/leader in a charter high school. Ms. McNeil began working at REACH NOLA in January of 2010.

Diana Meyers, RN
Board Director

Diana Meyers, is Community Wellness Director of St. Anna's Medical Mission (SAMM), a healing endeavor of St. Anna's Episcopal Church of New Orleans. In November 2005, several months after Hurricane Katrina and levee failures caused massive flooding in New Orleans, St. Anna's Episcopal Church purchased an RV to operate as a mobile medical unit. The goal of the medical unit is to provide free physical, behavioral, and preventive services directly to poor and working class people, who are recovering from the disaster in Greater New Orleans. St. Anna's Episcopal Church Medical Mission began protocol design, wellness screenings and partnership building in January 2006. By the summer of 2006 the St. Anna Mobile Medical Unit began serving neighborhoods throughout Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes and by the end of 2006 had documented 1635 client visits. Mrs. Meyers has contributed thousands of hours to the oversight, coordination, management, and direction of all aspects of St. Anna's Medical Mission. Mrs. Meyers has been an active REACH NOLA partner since its inception in April of 2006 and is a Board Director.

Antor O. Ndep MPH, DrPH (c), CHES
Board Director

Antor O. Ndep, is Executive Director of the Common Ground Health Clinic (CGHC), a free Primary Care Clinic located in Algiers. The Common Ground Health Clinic started on September 9th, 2005 just days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. The clinic was set up in a mosque (Masjid Bilal) as a first aid station but with the arrival of doctors, nurses, herbalists, massage therapists, and community organizers, it became a full functioning clinic operating day and night, doing house calls, and providing services to whomever walked through its doors. Common Ground Health Clinc's mission is to provide free quality health care for the greater New Orleans community, and develop and provide programs to address community health care needs through collaborative partnerships. She oversees staff and volunteers and works collaboratively to promote sound working relationships, clinical services, outreach programming, cooperative arrangements with other health care entities, funding sources, community groups and grassroots organizations. Ms. Ndep has worked with REACH NOLA since September 2006 and is a Board Director.

Benjamin Springgate MD, MPH
President, Board Director

Ben Springgate is a founder of REACH NOLA; Clinical Instructor at Tulane School of Medicine; Adjunct Scientist at RAND Health; and Medical Director of the St. Anna Medical Mission. Dr. Springgate has been active with REACH NOLA since its inception in April of 2006. He co-leads the Health and Resilience Project,and the Mental Health Infrastructure and Training Project.

Candice Wilson, MPH

Candice Wilson serves as Program Coordinator for the REACH NOLA MHIT project. She works closely with other team members to facilitate all logistics in planning and implementing collaborative care training for mental health workers in New Orleans and surrounding areas. As a native New Orleanian, Ms. Wilson has worked with several projects focused on public health in Louisiana, including the Child and Family Health Study, the Life Story Project and the Maternal and Child Health Risk Assessment Project. Ms. Wilson received her Master of Public Health degree from Louisiana State University's School of Public Health in New Orleans, where her area of concentration was Biostatistics.

Ashley Wennerstrom, MPH

Ashley Wennerstrom manages the REACH NOLA Mental Health Infrastructure and Training Project, which aims to increase access to high quality mental health care for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wennerstrom is a section councilor for the Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section of the American Public Health Association, and she has volunteered and studied in Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Wennerstrom received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado in International Affairs and Spanish. She served as an AmeriCorps Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) at New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity prior to earning an MPH in maternal and child health at the University of Arizona. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Community Health Sciences at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.