2006-7 Sabbatical Grantees
Julian Huerta, Foundation Communities
Julian Huerta is the current Director of Community Services for Foundation Communities, Austin's largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing and supportive services. He develops and directs educational, social service and asset-building programs that serve more than 12,000 working poor families annually and that have been recognized as among the best housing-based supportive services in the country. Mr. Huerta is also co-founder of Sammy's House, a nonprofit childcare center for young children with special medical and developmental needs in Austin. He brings more than 15 years' experience in program development, nonprofit administration, and fundraising.
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Lana Lesley, Rude Mechanicals Theatre Company
Co-founder, Co-Producing Artistic Director and Business Manager for the ensemble theatre company, Rude Mechanicals, Ms. Lesley has co-created, co-produced and performed in seventeen original productions, and toured to such select venues as Walker Center for the Performing Arts, Wexner Arts Center, UCLA Live! On the Boards, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Network of Ensemble Theatres Festival, and the SommerSzene Festival in Salzburg, Austria. She has received fifteen awards and nominations for her work as an actor, and was selected "Best Actor/Actress" in Austin by the Austin Chronicle 2002 and 2004 Readers' Polls, and as one of "Austin's Most Valuable Players" by Austin Chronicle critics.
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Gail Rice, SafePlace
Gail Rice serves as the Community Advocacy Director for SafePlace, a non-profit agency in Austin that provides a spectrum of services for victims and survivors of sexual and domestic abuse and violence. She works with community organizations, task forces, and coalitions to create more effective local responses to the people SafePlace serves. Ms. Rice began working as Volunteer Coordinator with the Austin Center for Battered Women in 1981. Although the greater part of her work in the intervening years has been in community education and advocacy, she has counseled victims of domestic violence individually, and still has direct contact with individual victims each month through the class she teaches, "Understanding Domestic Violence." She has an MSW from the Worden School of Social Work.