Staff

Maryann Hedaa is the Founder and Managing Director of The Hunts Point Alliance for Children.  Maryann has played an active role in transforming the Hunts Point community for over 15 years.  In 2004 Maryann founded the St. Ignatius School for Girls, which in 2005 she integrated with the boys school, and was named Principal. Before embarking on her impactful work in Hunts Point, Maryann was a leader in both the academic and business arenas.  Her area of expertise is leadership development, with a focus on how to sustain high levels of commitment and motivation in challenging and changing work environments.

Prior to St. Ignatius, Maryann was Sr. Director at Hildebrandt International where she was head of the Leadership and Strategy Practice Group. While there she consulted with several major professional services companies from investment banks to law firms and consulting firms including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Scadden Arps, Paul Weisse, Brown Brothers Harriman, Cleary Gottlieb, and Thompson Information Publishing Group.

From 1985-1997 Maryann was an instrumental teacher, leader and external business consultant at Columbia Business School, where she was the Assistant Dean of Education and Director of the Institute for Non Profit Management.  In addition to teaching and leading the Institute, she taught in both the MBA and Executive MBA programs.  While at Columbia, Maryann was a Partner and Head of the Leadership Development & Performance Practice at the Impact Planning Group, a consulting firm made up of CBS professors.  In this role she created several executive leadership programs for high potential executives in financial and professional service firms.

In 1979, Maryann founded URBAN ADVENTURES, an adapted college-prep Outward Bound Program for inner city at-risk youth.  She was the Executive Director of the program for six years, and during that time she developed the Project Discovery Program at South Bronx High School.  This youth leadership program currently exists in several New York City High Schools. At the time, Maryann was known as the “Outward Bound Nun,” as she the first Roman Catholic nun to attend OB programs.  Also in 1979, she served as the Environmental Education Coordinator for the Bronx Frontier Development Corporation.

Maryann earned a BA in History and English Literature from St. John’s University, an MA and MS from St. Mary’s College in Ethics and Psychology, an MS from Columbia Business School and an STL in Social Ethics from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology.

She currently is a member of the Board of Directors for both the Shakespeare Society and Brilla College Prep Academy, a new charter school located in the Mott-Haven section of the Bronx.  She formerly served on the Board of Directors of the Children’s Law Center and The Nantucket Aids Network.

Sabrina is the Director of Early Childhood Education for Hunts Point Alliance for Children. She is a National Board Certified Teacher who taught for sixteen years in the Chicago Public Schools. She taught in Prekindergarten, Head Start, Kindergarten, Dual Language, and English Language Learners’ programs and she coached multiple sports programs for seventh and eighth graders. Sabrina has served as a teacher mentor, written and been awarded various grants for her classroom, and conducted and presented on her classroom research at various conferences across the country.

After Chicago, Sabrina spent over two years working in the District of Columbia Public Schools as an Early Childhood and Bilingual Master Educator. In this role, she developed and implemented an early childhood rubric for teachers, evaluated teachers, and provided them with professional development opportunities.

Sabrina is proficient in written and spoken Spanish and has a Masters Degree from Tufts University. Sabrina enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and reading; she is also very interested in fitness and nutrition. Sabrina is thrilled to be working with HPAC as it works with the community to develop even more programs to serve the needs of our youngest learners.

Griselle Baret is the Director of Education Programs for the Hunts Point Alliance for Children (HPAC).  She is also one the Alliance’s founding members—she was an Administrative Intern during HPAC’s inception in 2006.

Griselle has been working with youth programs since 2003, when she served a Youth Advisor for the Sacred Heart Youth Group, a safe haven for 13-18 year olds of the Sacred Heart Parish in the Highbridge section of the Bronx.  As an Advisor, she helped coordinate and supervise activities Saturday nights to keep teenagers off the streets when they were not in school.  In 2006, Griselle became an Americorps volunteer, working as the Community Resource Coordinator for St. Ignatius School.  She was in charge of maintaining contacts throughout the community and beyond during the 2006-2007 academic year. She also assisted the school’s Graduate Support Program. Currently, Griselle directs and coordinates HPAC’s school-related programs, such as the Hunts Point Children’s Shakespeare Ensemble.

Griselle is recently finished her Master’s in Educational Leadership from New York University, where she also earned her Bachelor’s degree in 2006.

As of March 2012, Mickey Correa became HPAC’s new Family Project Director.  Mickey’s career in social work began working with the homeless at a Crisis Intervention advocacy program and then at an actual municipal shelter for adult families.  For the past 4 years he did direct clinical practice with children, adolescents, couples and families at a preventive counseling program in Brooklyn.

Mickey earned his BA from Hunter College where he double majored in History and Religion.

Mickey’s graduate studies include an MSW from Fordham University with a concentration in Clinical Social Work and a specialization in treating substance abuse and a M.Div. from New York Theological Seminary.  At the present time Mickey also is engaged in post graduate psychoanalytic psychotherapy training at the Washington Square Institute.

On his down time, Mickey’s interests include reading, going to the gym, walking, attending the theatre and traveling.

Judithann is the Education Counselor for the Hunts Point Alliance for Children. Judithann joined HPAC in September of 2010, after spending seven years at the St.Ignatius School in Hunts Point where she taught Science, headed Special Programs for academically advanced students, worked in the Graduate Support program, and was the Faculty Mentor. She was a founding member of the St.Ignatius Girls Program.

Previous to her present position she served on the Board of the Hunts Point Alliance for Children, for two years.Through the years, Judithann has taught at schools in Pennsylvania and New York City. Her volunteer work has included Literacy Volunteers of America -New York, whose focus is on adult literacy, and the New Beginnings program who works to resettle women who have suffered domestic violence.

Judithann graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Education and with a minor in Natural Sciences. She also did graduate work at Cornell University in their Marine Studies Program.

Dahiana Lessard is a Bronx-born native from the Highbridge area who recently rejoined the Hunts Point Alliance for Children team as Bookkeeper and the Food Program Coordinator.She was part of theAlliance in February of 2008 as an Administrative Assistant until joining the  Year Up program to improve her communicative, professional and technical skills. During the program, Dahiana earned a six-month apprenticeship at Google, Inc, as a Field Technician. She then worked as a temporary Tech Assistant position at the Riverdale Country School. She was previously an active duty soldier for the United States Army as a Human Resource/Administrative Personnel Specialist for two and a half years.

Dahiana is a single parent with two daughters, currently ages four and six, who are what motivate her to accomplish whatever is set in her path. Dahiana is also working to obtain a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and become a counselor. She is passionate about working to help others and believes working at HPAC will help her perfect the skills she needs to be of help to others.

Mike O’Keefe is the new Webmaster for HPAC’s web site.  He recently graduated from Plattsburgh State, a SUNY school located in upstate New York, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Newspaper Journalism.  He joined the HPAC staff a few weeks out of school to update the website and think of new ways to get the word out about Hunts Point. Mike started writing in high-school for his school newspaper, then graduated to his university’s official paper.  While writing in college, he became an assistant news editor and online editor for the school’s newspaper, where he undertook many of the challenges and issues he deals with at HPAC.

Mike hopes that the people he will see and meet in Hunts Point will help him advance in his post-graduate studies.  He loves to talk to strangers and enjoys the sense of community found in the area.

Recently, Mike helped five local young-adults to create a literary magazine describing thier point of view on Hunts Point called The Five Points. He looks forward to spreading his knowledge about writing and web content to any child in the 10474 zip code who wants to know anything about it.

Victoria Cohen is the Research Analyst and Community Organizer for the Hunts Point Alliance for Children.  She graduated from Brandeis University in 2009 with a BA in Psychology and Hispanic Studies.  Following graduation, she served as a Corps Member with City Year New York in the South Bronx, where she fell in love with her students at PS 48 and the community she found in Hunts Point.

Her interest in Spanish language and Hispanic cultures led her teach English for five months in Chile, her mother’s homeland, with the Chilean Department of Education and the United Nations Development Fund.

After spending a semester working at an Achievement First charter school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Victoria is thrilled to be back in Hunts Point.  She looks forward to working with the community again as a part of the Hunts Point Alliance for Children.

Melissa Gottlieb is the Communications & Strategic Planning Associate and primary tutor at Hunts Point Alliance for Children. She is responsible for researching and writing HPAC’s newsletter, which addresses needs, news, accomplishments and events both within and related to the Hunts Point community and HPAC Alliance members. Melissa also supports the strategic planning for expanding HPAC’s Early Childhood Program. As tutor, Melissa works individually with kids from the 1^st through 12^th grades to help them master subjects ranging from introductory reading to high school history, math, essay writing and Regents Exam prep work.

Pety Acebo has been HPAC Bookkeeper / Administrative Assistant since October 2010. Before she joined the Hunts Point Alliance for Children, Pety worked as a Crew Leader Assistant at US Census Bureau, a position that gave her the opportunity to know more about her community and the needs that exist in it.  Also, Pety worked in the Accounting Department at Stuyvesant Oil Company for almost five years; this was a wonderful experience for her, because she improved her knowledge of accounting, and also helped her receive a BA in Accounting at Lehman College in of May 2009.

Pety is Ecuadorian and since she came to this country, many of her hopes and dreams have come true but she still has many goals to accomplish. Pety wants to get her Master’ degree in accounting, and the most important goal she has is making sure her daughters have a good education to become successful in life.

She is happy to work for an organization such as HPAC that helps children discover their skills and encourages them to learn something new every day.

Devin is a Teaching Artist for the Hunts Point Alliance for Children. He joined HPAC to create and lead the Storefront Ensemble.  He also is a lead teaching artist for the Shakespeare Ensemble.  Currently, he coordinates the theater program at the Bank Street Summer Camp, where he also runs the Shakespeare Program.  As an actor, he works both on screen and on stage.  Most recently he was seen on MTV’s I Just Want My Pants Back and in Classic Stage Company’s Unnatural Acts, for which his performance earned the Rosemarie Tichler Award.  Devin received his MFA from New York University’s Graduate Acting Program.

Even though she is not officialy a staff member, Barbara is a essential part of the HPAC team as Jumpstart’s Community Coordinator for Hunts Point. Barbara loves the “ah-ha” moment when a child captures a new idea, understands and it becomes their own and then as an instrument of Jumpstart, taking that wonderful new skill and building “scaffolding” on it to the next “ah…ha” moment. She has the privilege of helping parents and teachers guide their children to the “ah…ha” moments. She loves the idea, that you can help children at a very early age develop the skills they will need to be successful readers.  Even though Barbara has a degree in Civil Engineering, she likes to think of herself as the “Educational Engineer”, creating a blueprint and building a solid foundation for a child’s future.