MEET THE TEAM
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Executive Director
Email: arrington@ecmteam.us
Arrington was the co-founder and former Executive Director of Life Together. Ordained to Episcopal Priesthood in 2004, she served five years as Assistant/Associate Rector with the Church of St. Andrew in Marblehead, MA. Prior to ordination, she founded No Ordinary Time, an organization that worked primarily with young activists, artists and faith-based leaders to integrate faith, spirituality and reflective practice into their social justice work. Past work includes the National Community Service field for Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), a campus organizing project; and Project Leadership Education Employment Opportunities (LEEO), an organization aimed at channeling the leadership skills of gang-affiliated young men. She is particularly interested in the intersection between the inner work of contemplative prayer, reflection and healing and the outer work of nonviolent action, reconciliatory dialogue, and community organizing to bring about social change and with God's help, grow the kingdom of God on earth.
Arrington was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She holds a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her partner and their teenaged daughter.
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Chief Operating Officer
Email: ellen@ecmteam.us
Ellen is a seasoned professional who has worked across sectors and industries in a variety of roles including Executive Director, Director of Business Operations, Project Manager, consultant, board member and volunteer. With graduate degrees in management and religion, Ellen helped start the not-for-profit organization The Partnership for Organ Donation, whose mission was to apply business principles and data-driven approaches to increase the number of organs for transplantation.
For more than 15 years, Ellen advised corporate, government, and not-for-profit organizations on a wide array of strategic and organizational issues. Clients included the New England Donor Services, the US Department of Health and Human Services, Princeton University's Student Volunteers' Council, Genzyme, and Biogen. Her most recent jobs include Executive Director for Voice Health Institute, a patient-driven not-for-profit organization promoting research, education, and public awareness of voice health issues, and, Director of Business Operations for Akashi Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company devoted to developing treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Complementing her professional endeavors, Ellen has long-standing and deep commitments to mending creation through direct service (community meals, food pantries, shelters, parish-level pastoral care) as well as involvement with organizations working for justice (Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, B-SAFE, New Haven Community Loan Fund)
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Manager of Operations and Grants
Email: carol@ecmteam.us
Carol has worked in advancement for Chicago Theological Seminary, Episcopal Divinity School and Boston Ballet. Carol worked as the Administrator of Grace Episcopal Church in Medford. At Grace Church she was mentored by the community.
Carol attended Clark University and has an M.Div degree from Chicago Theological Seminary.
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Program Officer, Spirituality and Justice
Email: dan@ecmteam.us
Dan was born and grew up with his three siblings in Boston Massachusetts where he was raised in Greater Boston's Jewish Community including Solomon Schechter Day School, Temple Hillel Bnai Torah and Camp Yavneh. After leaving Boston for college in Connecticut and to teach at a high school in Brooklyn Dan returned to Boston in 2007 to begin the Jewish Organizing Initiative where he received community organizing training and began his career as a youth organizer at Dorchester Bay Youth Force. For ten years, Dan was the Youth Force director and during this time co-founded the Youth Jobs Coalition and helped to launch the I Have A Future Movement. Most recently, Dan has been interested in how to connect his spiritual path and his organizing work. He is currently exploring this and other key questions through his work at Episcopal City Mission and the Inside Out Wisdom and Action Project.
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Program Officer, Racial and Economic Justice
Email: neha@ecmteam.us
Neha (she/her) was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal. She came to the U.S. as a college student and since then, has lived in North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and now, Massachusetts. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and Communication from Salem College, and a Master’s Degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University. Neha worked as a Fund Manager at The Family Aid Boston before joining Episcopal City Mission and has had a diverse work experience including research, inclusion, and grants management in both, local and international organizations.
Neha also identifies as a storyteller and uses literature as her primary medium to engage in community organizing. Her creative work revolves around decolonial politics, diasporic nostalgia and the joys of reimagining anti-oppressive futures. Neha likes summer, road trips, pop-culture analysis, and conversations with strangers on the train.
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Communications & Event Coordinator
Email: cynthia@ecmteam.us
Cynthia N. Perry (She/Her) is an aspiring womanist theologian who calls Washington, D.C. home. She earned her Master's of Divinity with a Religion and Conflict Transformation certificate from Boston University School of Theology. Before working at Episcopal City Mission, Cynthia worked in DEI in Higher Education and prior to her theological studies Cynthia worked as a certified athletic trainer and fitness and membership director. Cynthia is currently a board member of Bikes Not Bombs, a Boston nonprofit that believes the bicycle is a vehicle for social change and empowers youth through leadership opportunities within the bike shop and the community. Cynthia's passion and motivation, whether in the classroom, sports, or boardroom, is creating spaces where diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging aren't just buzzwords but how one lives their life in community with others.
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Director of Organizing
Email: edwin@ecmteam.us
The Rev. Edwin Daniel Johnson is an enthusiastic and lifelong lover of Jesus and Episcopalian. Walter and Vilma, his loving parents from Montserrat and Costa Rica respectively, sought out diverse and loving communities in which to raise him which included St. John's and St. James's Church in Roxbury. Edwin experienced the call to ministry at age five during baptism and got his first taste of community organizing and collective power at age 11 with the Roxbury Church Collaborative. It was then he gained clarity around the nature of his call to Gospel Joy and Justice. Edwin attended Tufts University and later Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Since then his parish ministries at both St. James's Episcopal Church and later as Rector St. Mary's have been deeply rooted in inviting and equipping God's people to follow Jesus into working alongside the most marginalized. Most recently this has included his work with Prophetic Resistance Boston, an affiliate of the Massachusetts Community Action Network. He is also the Chair of the Episcopal Church’s group on Beloved Community and a member of the Working Group on Truth, Reckoning, and Healing.
Edwin has a deep love and passion for the music, dance, and cuisine of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is an avid dancer and teaches and performs Latin, Brazilian and African Dance with Moves and Vibes dance company. He also enjoys training and participates in weightlifting competitions. He spends the rest of his time with friends, family, his wife Susan Lenn Johnson, and their sons Francisco and Santiago. Susan is the campus minister at Matignon High School, a creative liturgist, and a lover of winter sports and the outdoors. Francisco is a budding athlete and linguist and Santiago has caught the dancing bug from his dad.
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Lead Organizer
Email: hannah@ecmteam.us
Hannah Hafter is excited to join Episcopal City Mission in October 2022 following seven years organizing nationally around immigrant justice at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. During that time, she worked closely with UU congregations and State Action Networks to advance both community-based harm reduction efforts (such as immigrant accompaniment, asylum-seeker sponsorship, stop deportation campaigns, and sanctuary) and policy advocacy to decriminalize immigration and enable fair access to the U.S. asylum system. Previously, Hannah lived and worked in Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border with the humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, and in Guatemala as an accompanier to genocide case witnesses with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). Hannah has an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College and a Masters in Public Health from the University of AZ. Hannah lives in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston with her daughter, Jade, and their elderly pup, Gremlin. In their free time, Hannah is an avid mushroom forager and grower, and will eagerly geek out about the radical mutual aid networks modeled by fungi.
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Administrative, Technology, and Finance Coordinator and Associate for Episcopal Organizing
Email: derek@ecmteam.us
Derek was born in Newton, Massachusetts steeped in the Episcopal community of Grace Church. While at Oberlin College, Derek majored in History, focusing on Asian-American history and its intersectionality with the Civil Rights movement. Diploma in hand, Derek wondered what he could do to serve a community. Interning at the Boston Symphony Orchestra had given him a glimpse of nonprofits, and at the suggestion of a family friend, Derek applied and joined City Year Boston as a corps member, mentoring and tutoring at-risk students in the Boston public school system. Along with his team of 6 other corps members, he served 8th graders at the Timilty Middle school. After his year of service, Derek became the center manager for Mathnasium Newton—a franchised math tutoring facility that focuses on building math skills through discussion and rewards.
With his hands in many projects, he supports the rest of the team to do what they do best. While not working, Derek loves to bake and experiment with food. In lieu of pets, he has a sourdough starter and kombucha scoby that receive his time and attention.
Board of Directors
Corporation
PRESIDENT
The Right Reverend Alan M. Gates
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
VICE PRESIDENT
The Right Reverend Carol J. Gallagher
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Elected Officers
CHAIR
Margaret Post
VICE-CHAIR
Alexizendria Link
CLERK
The Rev. Amy Whitcomb Slemmer
TREASURER
Paul K. Wong
Elected Members
Carolyn Chou
The Rev. Isaac Everett
Lyn Freundlich
Gabriella Mora
Andree Saulnier
The Rev. Kevin Vetiac
George Whitehead
Luz Zambrano