Chapter Leadership

Melannie Chard, Chapter Director
Melannie Chard has been a member of the YWTF since April 2006 and served as Director of Membership and Outreach in 2007.  She currently works as an account manager in the appraisals department at Sotheby's Auction House and is responsible for overseeing appraisals and consignments for clients with large collections of fine and decorative art. Melannie has worked as a design consultant and multi-media coordinator for Kingsbridge Risk Solutions in London and Renee Fotouhi Fine Art in New York City. She holds a degree in broadcast journalism from Central Michigan University and studied international journalism at American Intercontinental University in London.
 

Nicole Casamento, Director of Policy 
Nicole Casamento is a senior at Rutgers University, studying psychology. She works in the social psychology research department studying how exposure to violence affects children's interactions with others as well as their feelings of security and their hopes (or lack of) for their futures. She has worked with NJ Pirg on campus to educate and register young voters and took an alternative spring break trip to New Orleans last year to help with the rebuilding efforts. She has worked for years in non-profits with children and interned last semester for P.A.T.C.H. (Parents and their children) at the office of Offender Aid and Restoration, a local organization in Clifton, New Jersey that attempts to prevent intergenerational criminal paths by facilitating weekly meetings for the children and their parents that allow more contact and time than is normally allowed and by providing the children of convicts with a positive group identity in an area where gangs dominate. Currently, she is a member of a New York City based organization called Agents of Change that places volunteers in various areas of the city based on their skills and has its own monthly publication, The Rising Sun, which she writes for.


Victoria Passarella, Director of Membership and Outreach
Victoria Passarella is a 2005 graduate of the State University of New York at New Paltz where she majored in Women's Studies with a concentration in History and Politics. While at New Paltz, she was a Women's Studies TA and co-hosted a campus radio show that presented political and social commentaries heard throughout New York's Hudson Valley . She was Co-founder, Events Chair and President of the campus' Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance. In addition, she served as a Planned Parenthood Peer Counselor and Event Organizer for Take Back the Night. Victoria also served as President of the campus wide Student Association. Victoria has spent time interning for NARAL Pro-Choice New York, V-Day and Tuckner, Sipser, Weinstock & Sipser, a women's rights in the workplace law firm. She was Co-Reviser for Our Bodies, Ourselves, 2005 edition, where she wrote the campus organizing section of the "Organizing for Change" chapter. Victoria has worked as District Aid/Community Liaison for New York State Assembly Member Richard Gottfried and as the Program Coordinator for the Women's City Club of New York. In the summer of 2006, she was one of 100 women's rights advocates selected from across the country to be a Real Hot 100 "Hottie." She is in the process of creating ActionsforWomen.com; a website that identifies women focused activism. Victoria is currently attending Columbia University for a Masters in Fundraising Management.


Rebecca Andruszka, Director of Communications
Rebecca Andruszka joined YWTF-NYC Metro Chapter in 2005. She is currently Development & Communications Manager at Funders Concerned About AIDS. She has also shared her extensive research and writing skills with a number of local non-profit organizations, such as NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), and Day One (f/k/a Break the Cycle). Rebecca graduated from the United Way of New York City's Junior Fellows program in Winter 2007. She received her B.A. in English from The New School and recently completed her M.A. in English at Hunter College (City University of New York). Rebecca lives in Brooklyn with her partner, her cat, and a lot of books. She has been a feminist since she was six years old and is damn proud of it.

YWTF-NYC holds Board Elections every November (terms start in January of the following year).  Any young woman member who has attended two meetings (including the election meeting) is eligible to run for office.  Please stay tuned for details nearer the election date.