American Friends of
The School of St Jude Board

Cindy and her family have been supporting St Jude’s since 2005. Her professional background is in insurance underwriting and she has extensive experience in school governance, as a long-serving board member of Louisville Collegiate School in Kentucky, and as a member of the board of Wesley Seminary in Washington D.C. She also serves on the board of The School of St Jude Australia, a sister organization to American Friends of The School of St Jude, which raises funds in Australia for The School of St Jude.

Cindy has a great enthusiasm for St Jude’s and her commitment to the school has grown tremendously. Cindy and her family are impressed with and support the mission of St Jude’s which includes the commitment to finding the best teachers and to educate students to be moral leaders in their communities. She takes special joy in watching the St Jude’s graduates begin their adult lives by living out the spirit of the school – putting younger siblings through school, helping their parents, and contributing to their society. Cindy visits the school at least once a year.

Cindy is a founding member of the American Friends of The School of St Jude.

Meghan’s involvement with The School of St Jude and Tanzania began in 2014 when she volunteered as a member of the marketing team, aiming to increase awareness and support coming from the United States.

After two years at St Jude’s, Meghan remained in Tanzania to work as the General Manager of Arusha Medivac, a start-up air ambulance service and volunteered as a Marketing Communication Consultant at another Arusha nonprofit, The Plaster House. After five years in Tanzania, she returned to the US and started supporting AFSJ. She officially joined the board in 2019.

Meghan has 15 years of experience developing marketing and fundraising strategies and managing projects and campaigns end-to-end. She is currently the Vice President of Marketing at First American Equipment Finance.

Veronique Kessler currently works for the Galloway School where she has been the CFO for almost 10 years. She earned her CPA license while working for Deloitte and Touche in the San Francisco Bay Area where she grew up. After working in the financial sector, she moved into the non-profit sector working as a consultant for Stanford University and as CFOO for Wikipedia. She holds dual nationality (United States and France) and spent the first three years of her life in Burkina Faso. She is married with two children and hopes to make a visit to Tanzania and The School of St Jude in the near future.

Laurel had the privilege of hearing Gemma Sisia and Felix Mollel speak about The School of St Jude at the Rotary International Convention in Sydney, Australia. She was enthralled by the presentation and immediately set out to learn all she could about the school. Laurel began sending supplies and sponsored a student’s scholarship. Since then, she has spoken about the school to fellow Rotarians, friends, and colleagues. Laurel has visited the school annually and is committed to helping further the work of St Jude’s.


Laurel has 42 years of educational experience as a teacher, staff developer, site administrator, district administrator, assistant superintendent, university instructor, and consultant. She has a Master’s degree in Special Education and a Doctorate in Educational Administration.


Laurel is a member of several professional organizations. Laurel is the Past President of The Cultural Arts Rotary of Fresno, Past Chair of the Cultural Arts Rotary Foundation, and the Chair of the International Committee of the Cultural Arts Rotary Club of Fresno.

Dr James Calleroz White and his family have supported The School of St Jude and its students since the summer of 2014. He first traveled to Tanzania to with a group of educators to support the work of St Jude’s teachers through a partnership known as Kufundisha Pamoja. Since his first visit, James has championed the school by continuing to support teachers’ professional development and partnership by sending teachers from his schools in Louisville, Kentucky and Atlanta, Georgia to Tanzania. His family also hosted teachers from St Jude’s when they came to the United States.

Dr Calleroz White is currently the Head of School at The Galloway School in Atlanta, GA. He was previously the Head of School at Louisville Collegiate School in Louisville, Kentucky. Before moving to become a Head of School, James worked at schools in Boston, New York City, and Phoenix. James has over 20 years of experience in education including teaching, administration, and leadership at the JK–12, university, and nonprofit level and has served and held leadership positions on multiple local and national non-profit Boards.

Dr Calleroz White attended Harvard University where he earned a B.A. in Government in 1995 and a M.Ed. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy in 2001. He also earned his Ed. D. in Educational Leadership, Teaching, and Administration from Arizona State University in 2012. Born and raised in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, James is married to Dr Mistalene Calleroz White, who currently serves as Adjunct Professor and Enrollment Consultant for Spalding University, and has two daughters and a son who he hopes to bring to St Jude’s in the near future.

Mark Wagner and his family have supported The School of St Jude for over ten years. He has almost fifteen years of experience in strategic network design, construction, and operation.

Mark joined Bay-Tek Consulting in July of 2014 to help run operations and to manage State of Maryland business. Prior to joining Bay-Tek Consulting, he was a Senior Account Executive and Business Development Director at Zayo, Inc. in charge of the Baltimore region. Mark was a Founder and Managing Partner of Litecast, LLC. Litecast was the largest privately held fiber optic network in the City of Baltimore and provided network services for most of Baltimore’s major businesses, institutions, and organizations. Litecast was sold to Zayo in 2013.

Mark was the Technical Lead for the City of Baltimore Google RFI Submission and is currently a member of the Mayor’s Smart City Task Force in charge of coming up with a Broadband Strategy for the City of Baltimore. In addition, Mark is on the Board of the Emerging Technology Center, and is a Trustee for the Baltimore Museum of Art where he chairs the Technology Committee.

Mark holds a law degree from the Catholic University of America and a bachelor degree from Guilford College.

Pat Sutliff’s involvement with The School of St Jude began in 2003 when she heard Gemma Sisia (the Founder of St Jude’s) speak at the Rotary International Conference. Since then, she and her husband Willis have been sponsoring scholarships for St Jude’s students and encouraging others to sponsor too.

In 2009 Pat and her husband, a pediatrician, traveled to The School of St Jude where they performed the annual school physicals. Since then she has been helping Rotary clubs become involved with the school through donations and grants.

Pat has served as a volunteer and been on non-profit boards for most of her adult life. Her most recent activity has been as Secretary of the local Habitat for Humanity Board and the local and district Boards for Rotary, including a term as District Governor for Rotary International. Currently, she is Board Secretary for the Dakota Travel and International Visitor Program.

Pat graduated from Colorado State University with honors and a Bachelor of Science. After completing her internships, she became an Occupational Therapist and worked as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist for several years. Pat and Willis raised five children and are the proud grandparents of nine grandchildren.

Kelly’s involvement with The School of St Jude began in 2014 when she joined the Donor Relations team at the school as a volunteer, supporting fundraising initiatives from conception to completion to help the school continue fighting poverty through education.

After 18 months at the school, Kelly moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the United Nations Foundation working to fund malaria interventions for refugees and vulnerable populations throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Western Hemisphere.

In 2019, Kelly received an MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies from the London School of Economics and joined the nonprofit international development organization Pact. At Pact Kelly implemented UN and USAID funded projects in Tanzania, Sudan, Mali, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.

During this time, Kelly continued supporting AFSJ and officially joined the board in 2020.

In 2024, Kelly joined the USAID- funded LEAP Global Project focused on embedding technical expertise in infectious disease programs currently supporting USAID Missions in fifteen high-conflict and post conflict countries including Haiti, Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

Kelly resides in Washington, DC with her husband and dog.

Susie has passionately advocated for the School of St Jude since meeting Gemma Sisia at the NAIS Conference in Boston in 2006. As the Community Service Director of La Jolla Country School, she knew the LJCDS students would find meaningful ways to support the school in their efforts to fight poverty through education. She has always believed that St Jude’s is the perfect model for making lasting changes in the lives of children, their families, and the community.

Over the last 18 years, she has made five trips to Tanzania including three global service trips with high school students. The students sponsored a child and supported other St Jude’s initiatives. St Jude’s is a favorite school to generations of LJCDS students, families, and alumni.

Susie has 42 years of experience as an educator. She taught Middle School for 16 years, and created and led a nursery - twelfth-grade Community Service program for 19 years. She served as the Assistant Head of School for Community Engagement, working directly with parents, grandparents, alumni, and the Office of Philanthropy for 7 years.
She continues to serve La Jolla Country Day as Assistant Head of School, Emeritus.

She believes teaching and modeling the values of service and philanthropy are a way of life and she is thrilled to be working with the Board of the American Friends of the School of St. Jude.

Winrose graduated from the School of St. Jude in 2016. She completed her undergraduate studies at Trinity College as a MasterCard Foundation Scholar, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Economics, and graduated in 2021. She then earned a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University in 2023.

Winrose has interned with Infosys in India and the Trinity College Engineering Department in Connecticut. She is currently a Research Associate at Colorado State University, focusing on reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

In her free time, she enjoys sewing, reading, baking, and hiking.