Sugely Melenciano, President
Alyssa Dube, Vice President
Diane Sadowy, Secretary
John Albright, Treasurer
Beth McLendon Albright, Director
Caroline Berninger
Ann Citron
Melanie Forstrom
Jennifer Guiher, Ph.D.
Leslie Gutierrez-Saldana
Althea Loglia
Sam Magarelli
Debra Markes
Eileen Sweeny
Cicily Wilson
Ben Gilman, Student Associate
Advisors
Elliot Auerbach
Susan Barnett
Rev. G. Modele Clarke
Fatima Deen
Deborah Meyer DeWan
Rik Flynn
Stephen Gilman
Paula Lockshon
Laraine Mai
Nancy Pompeo
Deborah Schneer, Esq.
Erica Wagner, Former Board President (emeritus)
Esther Taylor-Evans, Former Board Member (in memoriam)
ULSTERCORPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS – BIOS
Sugely Melenciano, President, is originally from the Dominican Republic, and was raised in Miami, Florida. she is a graduate of both Borough of Manhattan Community College with an Associates in Business Administration and of The University of Connecticut with a Bachelors in Human Services. She has worked in the education and business field as well as various non profit organizations. Over the past two years she worked for Family of Woodstock as Program Director for the Everette Hodge Community Center and served on the Board of Directors for the Center for Creative Education. She is a single mom of two boys of her own, two step sons and two foster daughters. She enjoys Yoga and playing tennis. Her passion in life is helping others in life achieve their greatest potential.
Alyssa Dube, Vice President, holds a BS in Business Administration from University of New Hampshire and an MBA from European University Brussels. Her senior group project started the first NEBASR (New England Business Association Social Responsibility) conference including Stoneyfield Yogurts, Toms of Maine, Ben & Jerry’s and many others. These days she volunteers with community needs at animal rescue shelters, children groups and disaster relief emergencies. She is the proud mother and wife to a family who loves to help volunteer regularly. We believe it is important to help others and give back to our community. Our pet cat Minnie and dog Princeton are rescues and bring joy everyday.
Diane Sadowy, Secretary, is a Farmer’s daughter who grew up on a potato farm on Eastern Long Island, NY. She achieved a Masters in Psychiatric Nursing in 1967 and worked in NYC as a staff nurse until her daughter was born in 1970. She then pursued further training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and worked as a therapist in private practice in NYC from 1972 to 2000. She left her practice in 2000 so she and her husband could achieve their dream of sailing around the world on their sailing vessel “Dragonfly” from June 2001 to June 2006. They returned to land to help oversee the care of her aging parents in Long Island. For 10 years there Diane volunteered at her family church organizing chicken BBQs, coordinating winter meals for a homeless shelter program, and in the administration office of a residential child care center. After her parents passed, Diane and her husband moved to Ulster County. Her husband climbed here in the 60s so he wanted to return to a place that had provided him with so much joy. She is now finding her way into the volunteer world of the local community through the Farm to Food Pantry Program and the Mohonk Preserve and in the process getting back some of the feel of being a farmer’s daughter again.
John Albright, Treasurer, is an engineer for Applied Materials at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany. He has been an engineer for the past 23 years in the semiconductor industry. John’s experience includes; writing technical procedures and troubleshooting guides, planning and budgeting engineering activities and expenses for semiconductor equipment, complex data analysis and technical support to a team of engineers. He is a lifelong resident of Ulster County and has been a regular volunteer with the Farm to Food Pantry Program and UlsterCorps Zombie Escape since 2013. He lives in Stone Ridge with his wife, two children, and their pets.
Beth McLendon Albright, Co-Founder and Director, works part-time for Family of Woodstock, Inc., serving as Program Director for Volunteer Services and Food Security. She plays a lead role in the Farm to Food Pantry Program, recruiting and coordinating teams of volunteers to assist with gleaning, processing and distributing produce donated by local farm to food pantries, feeding programs, and shelters across Ulster County and the region. She was a co-founder of Freelance Farm, a web development co-operative specializing in nonprofit and arts organizations, and has designed and developed numerous award-winning websites for service agencies and nonprofits. She holds a master’s degree in architecture from Princeton School of Architecture, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale University. The daughter of a girl scout leader, she has been a committed volunteer her whole life, serving with the ASPCA as a teenager, Women’s Aid while living in Dublin, Ireland, and the Santa Fe Rape Crisis Center while living in New Mexico. Beth lives in Stone Ridge in the passive solar home she designed in 2005 with her husband, two step-children, and a menagerie of pets and wildlife.
Caroline Berninger has been an Ulster County resident since 1992, and is pastor of the Rondout Valley United Methodist Church in Stone Ridge. She finds the mission of UlsterCorps—”fostering a culture of volunteerism, collaborative work and community service”—an important county-wide expression of what small churches in the community should always try to do. Caroline is an ordained elder in the NY Annual Conference of the UMC, having received an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School and a B.A. in Classics from Amherst College. She and her husband are the parents to two children in their 20s, and laps to one Chihuahua.
Ann Citron has been a resident of Ulster County since 1983 when she had her first daughter and realized that the Hudson Valley is the most beautiful place to live and raise a family. Ann is currently the Theatre Arts Director at the Rosendale Theatre where she served as its Director for ten years. She is also one of the theatre’s founding members. She started her volunteer career as a candy striper in high school, wearing the uniform with pride. Volunteering has always been part of her life in many forms. She was a volunteer in a head start program and crisis hotline in college, was a runner for the World Hunger Project, volunteered locally for Angel Food East and Big Brother’s Big Sisters, and was the volunteer coordinator for the Rosendale Street Festival for many years. Ann has a BFA in Theatre Art, is an actor and director working all over the Hudson Valley and lives in Rosendale with her husband Patrick. They have four children between them and seven grandchildren (doing their part to create more volunteers in the world!)
Althea Loglia has been a resident of Ulster County since 1991 where she’s both worked and volunteered for a number of local community organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Scouts BSA, the YMCA of Kingston & Ulster County, Family of Woodstock and UlsterCorps. She has a BFA in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts and is currently an Account Clerk at the Ulster County Probation Department where she oversees grant funding. She’s a single mom of an adult son and when she’s not crunching numbers she can be found working in her studio, gardening, hiking, daydreaming, and seriously thrifting.
Sam Magarelli is a community volunteer. He is a Founding Member of Staying In Place, a senior support network, Founding Member of the Woodstock Volunteers’ Day Committee, Member- Board of Directors of the Woodstock Memorial Society, commonly known as the ‘Artists Cemetery’ and the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce & Arts. Over the last 35 years he has been a member of the Woodstock Rescue Squad, Founding Member of the Woodstock Soccer League, Member – Board of Directors of the Woodstock Arts Board, Trustee of the Onteora Central School District, President of the Board of Education, Ulster County Legislator, Member of the Phoenicia Rotary. He is a retired teacher. He taught for 38 years, 33 of them in the Kingston School District, until his retirement in 2006. He and his wife Catherine have two children and four grandchildren. They have resided in Woodstock for almost four decades.
Debra Markes has been a dedicated community volunteer in Ulster County for over 30 years after relocating to the area with her husband, John. She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Kingston where she served as treasurer and recording secretary during her active membership, as well as participating in many community projects and fundraisers. A portion of her League activities included co-chair of the Junior League funded and volunteer build of a Habitat for Humanity home in Kingston. Co-chair of the renovation of the Kingston Area Library Children’s room and helped with the running of the Children’s Explorium. Her involvement in the Kingston school district included PTA president, tutoring students and serving on the District-Wide Parents’ Council. She served on the board of Fare Share Soup Kitchen and coordinated and took an active role in food pickups from local restaurants and supermarkets. She currently is the hospitality food coordinator for the Woodstock Film Festival. She has a BA in communications from SUNY Albany. Debra resides in Glenford with her husband. They have three grown children and one granddaughter.
Eileen Sweeny has worked as a volunteer, board member, consultant and employee for non-profits in the fields of substance abuse treatment, affordable housing, education, environmental and child care advocacy, and healthy food access. She also worked in the private sector in labor relations and administration. In 2018, Eileen happily relocated with her husband to Ulster County where she enjoys gleaning with other Ulster Corps volunteers and soaking in all of the surrounding beauty.
Cicily Wilson is Assistant Dean for Civic Engagement & Director of Community Partnerships at Bard College. Prior to working at Bard, her career centered on nonprofit management with a focus on public relations, community development and fundraising for many organizations including the Elie Wiesel Foundation, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Girl Scouts. She has a deep commitment to civic engagement and volunteerism. She currently serves on the board of the Friends of Forsyth Nature Center, Kingston Land Trust and has served on the board of the Junior League of Kingston.