Coordinating Committee (Board of Directors)

L-R: Stacey Johnson, Maurice Weeks, Jayesh Patel, Vertongie Bailey, Ernestine Perkins, Shawn Kendrick, Jonathon Clark

Staff Members

Wytrice Harris is an Organizer and the Communications Lead. A Native of Alabama, Wytrice moved to Detroit as a little girl and attended various Detroit public elementary and middle schools graduating from Cass Technical High School. Wytrice is a non-traditional college student who went back to college in her 30’s and subsequently completed an associate degree, two bachelors and two masters.

Wytrice has worked in various aspects of the education arena in the past including tutoring non-traditional students in mathematics, teaching alternative high school students, working as a program advisor at Wayne State University for Math Corps and as the program director of the Osborn College Access Network for Osborn Neighborhood Alliance. Wytrice also has served in ministry with her husband as pastor of Total Life Christian Ministries since 1995.

Arlyssa Heard, mother of two boys, is an Organizer and Policy Lead. She graduated from Northwood University with a degree in Accounting and a BA in Business Administration.

Arlyssa began her work in Research and Evaluation at Michigan State University’s dept of psychiatry assessing local family intervention programs. Soon after, she started educating families and advocating for children at the Detroit Health Department. As a mother of a child with Sickle Cell Anemia, she was a statewide voice for parents while serving as a board member for Children’s Special Health Care Services.

In 2014, Arlyssa ran, as a first timer, for Detroit Public School Board securing 25,000+ votes. She is a current board member on the Focus: Hope village steering committee, an active “Mamavist” and board member for grassroots organization Mothering Justice, and serves on the parent advisory council of The Children’s Center (Detroit). She has also served on several parent advisory councils for Detroit Public Schools and grassroots neighborhood community councils.

Jamila Martin is the Director of Operations. She was born and raised in Boston, MA. She started organizing in college with United Students Against Sweatshops, where she helped lead a successful student campaign in support of campus security guards who were pressing for better jobs.

After graduating from Harvard with a BA in Government, she became a union organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Jamila then spent two years as a parent organizer in Southwest Detroit, building a network of parent committees in 10 schools that fought for and won improved school and city services.

Molly Sweeney is the Organizing Director. She graduated from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 2009 with a degree in Sociology: International Social Change. She is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.

After college, Molly worked as the lead organizer of the Detroit Action Commonwealth, a homeless union, and as a section-8 tenant organizer. With D.A.C Molly led successful campaigns to create a homeless court, to change secretary of state policy, and to remove the question of misdemeanor and felony from city job applications.

For the past two years, Molly has worked as an education organizer.

Dawn Wilson-Clark is an Organizer and Research Lead. She was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She is a committed believer in the greatness of her hometown’s history and more importantly, believes in its potential future.

Upon graduation from Detroit’s Redford High School, she served in the United States Army during Desert Storm.

Professionally, Dawn is also known as “Kuddles The Clown” and has spent the last 2 decades bringing love, laughter and life lessons to children of all ages performing at thousands of birthday parties, hundreds of schools, churches and community events. Dawn is committed to positive change and innovation in her community. She donates her time, energy, enthusiasm and talents to several boards throughout the city, to her neighbors and friends and to her children’s schools.

She is the very proud wife of Jonathon Clark and mother of 5 beautiful children, David, Dannah, Elanah, Emily and Daniel.