Staff
Nicole Aranda
Social Work Intern
Nicole Aranda was born and raised amidst the glorious hills and beaches of California. Having grown up in Laguna Hills, South Orange County (please don’t call it ‘The OC’) she was immediately aware of her own and the privilege surrounding her in comparison to the other neighborhoods and cities in Southern California where she would visit her large extended family. From Pasadena to Oxnard, from Koreatown to Westchester, being the only ‘only child’ on both sides of her Filipino and Mexican families, she traveled alone with her thoughts in the back of the car to many a family celebration wondering about the lives of the vastly different communities bordering the freeways of the larger Los Angeles Metropolitan area.
Growing up, she was involved in many activities a normal surburbanite girl raised in an upper middle class city was encouraged and expected to be involved in: track and field, MUN, drama and academics. For college, Nicole went to University of California at Davis where she biked around and made lifetime friends, as well as becoming obsessed with Sociology and Human Development (her majors). After college she moved to Oakland where she waited tables and passed out condoms to youth all over the Bay Area. Passing out condoms turned into a full-time gig at Planned Parenthood as a Medical Assistant/Counselor where she was surrounded by an empowering community of hilarious and wonderful women (not unlike the Powerful Voices staff!).
Moving to Seattle has been a lovely and amazing adventure filled with yummy food, friends and fun. She is currently in the University of Washington’s Master of Social Work program and cannot wait for her next adventure with her best friend and husband, Nick. When she is not at work she is dancing, eating, exploring, reading or attending weddings of her friends around the world.
Charhys Bailey
Middle School Instructional Coordinator
Charhys grew up in Tacoma, Washington a native Hilltopian with a passion for many art forms that helped her to see the world through a multitude of colorful lenses, especially painting, dancing, acting, rhyming and writing.
As she approached her senior year of high school, she decided that art and social justice were inseparable passions and she got involved with Seattle Young People’s Project and other anti-oppression groups working on campaigns to address institutionalized racism in Seattle public schools, confront the racist targeting of students of color by military recruiters, mobilize youth of color to hold elected officials accountable for racial profiling by Seattle police, empower young women to confront and dismantle gender oppression in their communities by co-creating active spaces of support and enlightenment, and model how youth can assert their cultural identity in the face of systemic oppression through Hip-Hop and Spoken Word.
Since then, Charhys has had the privilege of attending The Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus and has built relationships with over a dozen community centered organizations, artists and activists across the various disciplines of social justice work. For the past ten years, she’s worked with middle and high school age youth developing curricula and facilitating workshops on race and gender oppression, youth organizing, teen dating violence, healthy relationships, writing and performing Spoken Word, and youth voice to name a few.
She enjoys challenging and being challenged by young people and witnessing the magnificence of their potential come in to fruition in addition to writing, dancing, acting, traveling on a whim, partaking in culturally authentic cuisines and delectable vegan sweets, watching movies in those new recliner chairs at the Lakewood Town Center with friends, and attending trainings and workshops like a total movement nerd.
Tyler Bosma
Operations Manager
After a boring but privileged suburban Seattle upbringing, Tyler attended the UW, doing his bachelors studies in Linguistics. After college, he moved to the Georgia, where he had an amazing learning experience (complete with culture shock) while he worked for two years in a rural factory. He then started courses in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, focusing on queer theory along with race, class, and gender studies. Through his work at Powerful Voices, Tyler is involved with the Children, Youth & Family Sub-Coalition of the Seattle Human Services Coalition and the Non-Profit Staff Development Coalition. Tyler loves working at Powerful Voices, and is excited DAILY to be a part of such amazing and important work in support of girls. In his free time, Tyler volunteers for the United Way Free Tax Campaign and takes service trips to New Orleans as frequently as possible. Tyler also works as Operations Coordinator for another great Seattle non-profit -- Seattle Works, and appreciates the potential for change that volunteerism and engagement can bring to a community.
Rosie Garibaldi
Social Work Intern
Rosie was born in Melbourne Australia, but at the young age of 3, her parents decided to come back to the US in order to be around family. With most of her mom’s family in Bellevue, Washington, her family decided to plant its roots there. She was lucky to grow up in a very large, tight-knit family. She was always surrounded by her cousins and other family members and currently is grateful to be in a family with 5 generations. From a young age history fascinated her, especially the history she could not find at school. This is something that she recently begun diving back into. Through her time with her grandmother and great-grandmother, Rosie has begun documenting and researching her own families history, focusing especially on how identity and culture were communicated and taught. Currently she is studying social work in her senior year at Seattle University. In her spare time she enjoys eating great food, traveling and being around fun people.
Shavon Hayes
AmeriCorps Intern
Shavon was born and raised in Seattle's Central District, where she attended Garfield High School. After high school, she went on to earn a bachelors degree in Women’s Studies with minors in English and Comparative Ethnic Studies from Washington State University.
Shavon believes everyone deserves the freedom of expressing themselves in a manner in which allows them to feel empowered, confident, courageous and filled with joy! This would be why she enjoys watching her favorite movies repeatedly, listening to music, singing along off key, dancing uncontrollably and taking long walks.
Shavon enjoys and promotes continuous learning. Her motto is “the more you learn, the more you grow.” This has helped her look at every situation in life as a learning experience that she can grow from and has helped her become the person she is today. She also enjoys traveling and exploring other parts of the world. She has spent time in Morocco and Italy where she studied language, explored culture and ate delicious food that warmed her heart and soul. She hopes to set foot on all seven continents at least once in her life time
Shavon has a passion for promoting leadership development and uplifting youth. She hopes to be the same pillar of support for today’s youth as her mentors and educators were for her during her teenage years. She is thrilled to share her positive energy and courageous spirit through Powerful Voices.
Jane Hinton
Executive Director
Jane Hinton brings six years of non-profit leadership experience to her role as Powerful Voices' Executive Director. She earned this experience at the Center for Human Services, where she was employed for the past ten years. Jane was a youth worker who developed a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning teens, provided intervention services to youth involved with the juvenile justice system and established after school programs for immigrant and refugee youth. As a Director with the Center for Human Services, Jane was responsible for fundraising, community relations, personnel management, fiscal and operational oversight and program planning for a department of comparable size and scope to Powerful Voices. Jane has also worked as a Master Trainer for Loving Couples, Loving Children, a curriculum developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman of the Relationship Research Institute. In this role, she provided training nationally for Home Visitors working with low-income families. Jane earned her Bachelor of Arts in Human Services at Western Washington University, where she was also recognized as the outstanding graduate in Human Services. Jane and her partner Teriann are the proud parents of their one year-old daughter June.
Molly Pencke
Instructional Coordinator, STAGES
Molly Pencke was lucky enough to grow up in the south end of Seattle with her amazingly supportive parents and big sister, who is one of her best friends. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2002 and earned her B.A. in Community Studies with a minor in Education. During her time there she was the queen of internships and interned at elementary schools, in a juvenile detention center, with youth mentoring organizations, and internationally with a human rights organization in Nicaragua. After college, she could not wait to get back to Seattle to start her career in youth empowerment. While looking for work she took a detour and ended up getting her cosmetology license and has been a part time hair stylist ever since. Molly's recent experience in organizing and working for social justice came from her work as a youth counselor at a residential shelter for homeless and displaced youth and as a program manager working with residents in affordable housing. She is thrilled to be part of the Powerful Voices team and is actually excited to go to "work" most days. She enjoys reading, creative writing, painting, dancing, singing if no one is listening, building relationships, keeping the peace, eating, and traveling. In the future she will found a youth empowerment non-profit and plans on writing at least one novel, becoming fluent in Spanish, traveling the world, and becoming a mother.
Caroline Rex-Waller
AmeriCorps Intern
Born and raised in the northern suburbs of Chicago, IL, Caroline (later dubbed Rex) grew up in the flatlands of the Midwest. With a hearty appreciation for meat and potatoes and a slowly growing understanding of her own race and class privilege, Rex traveled east to study at Smith College. Here, she played rugby, toyed with the idea of majoring in English, and, most importantly, read Alice Walker’s poem “Womanism” for the first time, leading her to switch her majors to the Study of Women and Gender and African-American studies. After studying abroad in Mali, doing research with women’s vocational cooperatives in Bamako, Rex returned to Smith to focus on an independent study on friendship, narrative-sharing, and relationship-building as a form of activism. After graduating, Rex did a stint on a farm and at a publishing house, but found her happiness in Colorado teaching high school English. She loves working with youth for the energy and curiosity they bring out in her and their willingness to ask hard questions. Rex is excited to be working at Powerful Voices and to have the opportunity to learn from an incredible group of young people and the PV staff. She is currently attempting to learn Spanish and (despite an undiminished love for baby back ribs) to cook better vegetarian meals for her roommates.
Frankie Roe
Case Manager/Youth Advocate
Frankie was born in California and lived in Pasadena until she was 12 years old. She moved to Seattle in 1986 with her grandmother and 3 siblings. Moving here was a culture shock because things were so different.
Before moving to Seattle, Frankie was getting very interested in the arts and sang in the school choir and was active in the plays at the school. She wanted to be an actress.
Once she moved to Seattle her choice of friends were not that great. She was considered a high-risk youth and created a lot of chaos for herself.
As she became an adult the realization sank in, that there was no future in "hanging out". Frankie made a conscious effort to live her life in a different way. When Frankie reached out for help she had multi-faceted individuals that were willing to assist in reaching her goals and guiding Frankie towards her destiny.
Ms. Roe knew she was passionate about people and that she wanted to work with youth that had been through some of the same issues that she faced growing up. Frankie knew she had the ability to empower others and build on their strengths just as someone had done for her.
Frankie's interests are many of varieties; while she continues to grow and develop as each day comes and passes. She is bold, fun, compassionate and very honest. Frankie loves the Arts. The saxophone is her favorite instrument and PINK is her favorite color. Frankie was born in the year of the tiger and states "I am every bit a Tigress". Frankie enjoys watching others learn who they are and developing their potential, wholly.
In Frankie’s free time she enjoys cooking, spending time with friends and family, networking, writing, designing, self-educating and singing.
Frankie has one 14 year old daughter.