Our Team

Mary Le Nguyen
executive Director

Mary is the first Executive Director of color in Washington Community Action Network's 40-year history. Her lineage includes her grandfather who fought under Ho Chi Minh during the French occupation where his resistance resulted in the family home being burned down and his imprisonment. Mary has organized within the labor and reproductive justice movements for over 10 years and waited tables for nearly 20. Mary has a MA in Policy Studies from the University of WA.

lori schroyer hazelchild
director of membership & staff development

Lori has been with WashingtonCAN since 2006. She is one of the most positive people on staff and works hard to train, retain and integrate talented phone and field organizer/canvassers, who love their jobs, work environment and organization.

Waldo waldron-ramsey
political director

Waldo helps create and drive the local, state, and federal, political, civic engagement, and electoral strategy with the Executive Director, Leadership Council, and Board. He helps to shape the range of issues within that strategy, leads the lobbying efforts to push WashingtonCAN’s agenda forward, works to secure legislative champions, and creates an organizing strategy to pass laws that benefit the lives of the organization’s members.

Waldo originally started as a Community Organizer and transitioned to analyzing policy related to Healthcare, Housing, and Mass Liberation. Born out of being wrongfully convicted and having served 33 years of an exceptional sentence, a focus of Waldo’s is reforming Washington State’s criminal justice system and organizing community members and other stakeholders in support of second chance legislation.

sol bey
field canvass director

Sol was raised in a poor neighborhood in Pittsburg and he experienced catastrophic loss when his brother was murdered. As an African American man who faced systematic failures first-hand, Sol dedicated his work to reaching community directly through field canvassing. He has over 30 years of canvassing experience and is regarded as one of the most respected trainers in the Seattle area. He has helped build canvassing operations in cities and states across the nation.

Serena evans-satoran
Finance director

Serena has been at WashingtonCAN since 2011. She comes to us from the reproductive justice movement. Serena has been critical in creating systems of accountability for our organization and plays a critical role in the day-to-day operations.

Michael Langelier
director of membership administration

Michael became engaged in activism as a teenager, first getting involved in environmental and LGBTQ groups. Continuing with a passion for social justice, he joined WashingtonCAN in 1997. As Director, he manages the Data Department and the membership database. As a gay man, he plays a critical role in helping our organization remain diverse and inclusive; in particular, for the gay, trans and gender non-conformist communities. Michael also has cerebral palsy, representing the views of the differently-abled people in the organization, and working to ensure that WashingtonCAN is accessible for folks of all abilities.

rashell lisowski
organizing director

Growing up in the rural Midwest and attending college in a heavily segregated city, Rashell bore witness to many forms of injustice and discrimination. This served as her call to action and empowered her to engage in community organizing and activism. In her career, Rashell has worked to secure direct community investment in low-income neighborhoods, put an end to the school to prison pipeline, bring attention to the needs of working families, and uplift the voices of seniors and minority communities. As Lead Organizer, she trains and empowers organizers and members to create, lead, or prevent changes within their communities that impact the daily lives of community members. 

john godfrey
lead Field organizer

John has been with WashingtonCAN since 2016 and has a lifelong passion for economic, racial and environmental justice. He has over ten years experience in community organizing, leading candidate and issue-based campaigns. John has worked with small business owners of Main Street Alliance, helping to secure passage of paid family and medical leave for all Washingtonians. John has fought alongside healthcare and grocery workers to ensure fair compensation and safe working conditions, and led the ground game for the successful 2019 Stable Homes ballot initiative in Federal Way which increased protections for renters, keeping families in their homes.

Micaela romero
digital organizer - communications

Micaela is an Arizona native who has called Washington home for the last 20 years and is currently working on her undergraduate degree in Molecular Bioscience as a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM Scholar. She is the daughter of an undocumented immigrant who ultimately achieved citizenship shortly before losing his battle with COVID-19. As a mother, she is driven to provide a safer and stronger community for her children that includes accessibility to healthcare and housing. Micaela brings her lived experience to many facets of social justice including mass-liberation and immigration services. 

"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community," - Cesar Chavez

sarah leon
Housing organizer

While growing up in a large family with an income far below the poverty line, Sarah learned early on the importance of effective communication, collaboration, community... but most importantly-- how to share a bathroom with 6 others.  At 18, she moved to Olympia and began a career in medical billing and healthcare management. The housing insecurity and financial struggles she experienced as a young adult caused her to question the system that we create for ourselves. A staunch advocate for healthcare, criminal justice, and housing reform, Sarah is proud to work for WashingtonCAN. "If we want to see change, and we want that change to work for people, we have to reach out and build strong community ties."

GINNY PARHAM
Mass liberation organizer

Ginny is a community organizer, founder of Families Shoulder to Shoulder & is featured in the documentary "Since I Been Down" for her activism & volunteer work inside prisons. This is Ginny’s life's work since her son, Willie, was arrested at 17 and sentenced to 100 years. Since seeing her son seduced by gang life at just 11 years old, Ginny has dedicated herself to helping families not face the same heartbreaks. For 3 decades, Ginny has organized for prison reform and provided aid for those suffering under the current system.