Board of Trustees
Robert (Bob) Ferrante
President
Business Development Director
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Maureen Blachowski
Board Member
Commercial Real Estate Executive, CBRE (retired)
Eileen Phillips
Board Member
Accountant
(retired)
William Kennedy
Past Board Member
Co-Founder and President 1999-2018
(deceased)
Diana Wojciehowski
Treasurer
Field Acounting Manager
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R. John Davison
Board Member
History Teacher
(retired)
William Ross
Board Member
Radiologist
(retired)
Virginia Lavinish
Past Board Member
Board Member Emerita
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Cindy Singh
Secretary
Development Associate
(retired)
Lois Heist
Board Member, 2004 Interim Pres.
Teacher, School District Adminstrator
(retired)
Rev. S. Sturgis Poorman, Jr.
Past Board Member
Founder 1999-2018
(deceased)
Richard Keeler
Past Board Member
Board Member Emeritus
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Staff
Patricia Lorenz, Executive Director
Patricia is a native of Colombia and a bilingual Human Resources professional with a B.S. in Social Work and extensive experience in performance management and workforce engagement and training. Before coming to the United States, she directed HR departments with as many as 450 employees and taught classes at the National University of Colombia. Patricia immigrated to the U.S. in 2012. Her association with Welcoming the Stranger began in 2016, when she was a student seeking greater English fluency. By 2017, she had become a volunteer. In February of 2018, she became Welcoming the Stranger's first Administrative Assistant. In 2020, she was made Acting Director. She became a U.S. citizen in 2021 and assumed the role of Executive Director in 2022. Email Patricia
Susan Roop, Director of Educational Programs
Susan Roop began teaching English as a Second Language classes while working as a public sector attorney. In 2018, she added the class she was teaching in Lambertville, NJ to Welcoming the Stranger’s roster. Susan, who holds degrees from Skidmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University School of Law, taught English to high school students and Reading/Language Arts to 8th and 9th graders prior to taking up law. Now retired from the practice of law, she continues to teach English as a Second Language while directing Welcoming the Stranger’s educational programs and its "staff" of volunteer teachers.