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phone: 503-872-9664
fax: 503-231-3051
e-mail: info@smyrc.org
3024 NE M.L. King, Jr Blvd
Portland, OR 97212
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Who We Are: Staff
Bree Abbey
Community Education Coordinator- Bree is a part of SMYRC’s Community Education Program and joined the team in the summer of 2008. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Smith College and has experience in myriad forms of prevention education with at-risk youth and other populations experiencing health disparities. She is passionate about LGBTQ health issues and is excited to address them through her work at SMYRC. In her spare time, Bree is extremely busy concocting new and unusual dress-up themes, baking vegan cupcakes, stopping to pet every dog she sees walking down the street, and advocating for social justice!
Meghan Calahan
Drop-In Staff- Meghan has a B.A in Gender & Sexuality studies with a minor in Black Studies and Film Studies from Portland State. She is a former community organizer for In Other Words feminist center, advocate for women post incarceration through the YWCA, and the proud mama to an 19 month old diva named Louise (aka Wheezy) When she's not dismantling problematic language or thinking about radical gender justice, she enjoys djing vinyl records, baking, John Waters movies and the Golden Girls.
Robbie Croft
BSW Intern- Robbie has been working with youth since he can remember. He was a senior counselor for his hometown's summer camp for 6 years, a volunteer coordinator at Roosevelt High School for two, and a teen site leader for Big Brothers Big Sisters for one, and now he's super excited to be interning here at SMYRC!! Robbie's a senior at the University of Portland and he's going for his BSW so that's pretty dang exciting! He loves making puns and working Disney songs into a sentence. He loves apple products and adrenaline rushes! His favorite things to do are cross-country, snowboarding, dirtbiking (CRF450R), down-hill mountain biking and cliff diving. Fun facts about Robbie: He was ranked 20th in the state of California for Giant Solomon (Alpine snowboarding) in 2008, he knows three different Martial arts, and he can lick his elbow. Oh, Glee and Parenthood are his all time favorite shows!
Sarah Freeman
Drop-in Staff- Sarah feels so lucky to be a part of SMYRC! When she's not in the drop-in center, she serves as an Americorps member with the Cascade AIDS Project. She supports Youth Advisory Councils in four High School Based Heath Centers that are working to educate and organize their peers to increase knowledge about youth health and access to healthcare resources. Sarah graduated from Smith College with a degree in Women and Gender Studies and a minor in Alternative Economics. Sarah enjoys biking, eating, exploring Oregon, and hanging out with babies.
Emily Gardner
Office Superstar- Emily has a B.A. in Psychology and and M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction. Her professional background includes event management, curriculum design, community organizing and advocacy, social work and education. She is enthusiastic about bacon, martial arts, jingles and kite flying. Also, despite how things appear in the this photo, she's actually terrified of the tiny monkey in her lap.
Tyler Grissom
Counseling Intern- Tyler is currently in the MSW program at PSU, and for the past year, he has worked with homeless youth in the Portland area. Tyler's interest is with continuing to empower the LGBTQ community through providing counseling and other services. Tyler loves to watch football, especially the Dallas Cowboys, and spend time with his family. Tyler also considers Batman and Captain America to be the greatest super heroes of all time.
Jess Herbach
Resource Center Coordinator- Jess started working with SMYRC in August of 2008 after working with a number of homeless youth organizations in both Chicago and Portland. Since beginning at SMYRC, he has found a new love for macaroni and cheese, free pile dress up, and pop music. Jess' other interests include robots and dinosaurs, getting nerdy with queer and feminist theory texts, and exploring gender and sexuality through creative writing, found object art and radical theatre.
Mo Kenny, QMHA
Washington County Pride Project Coordinator- Mo became a part of the SMYRC team in 2005 as a Resource Center intern from the University of Portland. During her internship, SMYRC youth and staff played a vital role in the completion of Mo’s undergraduate thesis on domestic violence in the queer community. After earning two Bachelor’s degrees (in Social Work and Spanish), traveling the world, and working for a mental health agency and Planned Parenthood, Mo returned to SMYRC in Spring 2007 as the Coordinator of the Washington County Pride Project! Mo has been known to enjoy drag kinging, pictures of unicorns, long walks on the beach with her dog Noodle and helping sexual and gender minority youth make a difference in their communities!
Kerst Nelson
Drop-in Staff- After a brief stint as an adult volunteer, Kerst joined SMYRC as an AmeriCorps member focusing on health promotion within SMYRC and the overall queer community. Kerst has a B.A. in Neuroscience from Smith College and hopes to someday build a career from blending their scientific background with their gender obsession. At SMYRC, Kerst can be found working in the garden, meeting with Youth Events Council members, or networking with folks from Pride to encourage a youth-friendly festival. When not at SMYRC, Kerst enjoys biking, gardening, crock-potting, and ginger ale.
Grey Reid
BSW Intern- Grey began at SMYRC in the fall of 2011 to start an internship for the BSW program at PSU. Grey is committed to social justice, community building, and youth empowerment and is excited to work with an organization which also highly values these ideals. Outside of SMYRC, Grey can often be found listening intently, appreciating stellar hairstyles, missing the ocean, avoiding loud noises, and otherwise living life as quietly as possible.
Marty Savell
Case Management / Counseling Intern- Marty is an MSW intern from PSU. She was born and raised in the great and showy state of Alaska. When she was 18, she moved to the lower 48 and earned her bachelor's degree in gender studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Marty's hobbies include camping, swimming outdoors, painting nails, listening to pop music (Justin Bieber is her favorite!, and cuddling with her cat, Walter. He has four years' experience working with Portland youth and is super excited to be a member of the SMYRC team.
Mehera Scheu
Umbrella Community Counseling Project Counselor- For more than five years Mehera coordinated the Bridge-13 community education program at SMYRC. She received a Bachelors of Science in Psychology with an emphasis in Middle Eastern and Black studies. Mehera also worked as an advocate for the Middle East Women's Resource Center (MEWERC) where she provided culturally specific resources and support to women from the Middle East and central Asia who faced domestic violence. Mehera holds a Master of Science degree from Pacific University's Counseling Psychology program and loves being a counselor with SMYRC's Umbrella Community Counseling Project.
Ladawn Sheffield
Clinical Counseling Intern, QMHA- Ladawn joined the SMYRC community in 2010 and feels super lucky to be working with such a supportive and awesome team. She is currently in the MA Counseling Psychology program at Lewis and Clark College and completed her BSS in Comparative Religion at Cornell College. Ladawn believes in an integrated, strengths based approach to counseling and is interested in Narrative Therapy, Feminist Therapies, and traditional and holistic approaches to mental health. She is also interested in infusing creativity and personal expression into therapy. Ladawn is currently on the Steering Committee for Camp Odyssey, a diversity and social justice program for youth.
Natalia Zhikhareva, MA, QMHP
PhD Counseling Intern- Natalia joined SMYRC in 2011 as a part of the Umbrella Community Counseling
Project. She holds a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from Lewis &
Clark College and is currently working toward completing her PhD in
Clinical Psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her primary
interest is to work with LGBTQ community and to become a certified sex
therapist. Natalia is fortunate to work at SMYRC as a psychotherapist from
a depth psychological orientation, exploring the relationship between the
conscious and the unconscious.
