Christine Ward

Executive Director

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Christine was appointed Executive Director in October 2017, having originally joined Raising A Reader MA as Operations Manager in January 2010. Her passion for reading and empowering parents is supported by her volunteer work, raising her own two boys, and now as the leader of Raising A Reader MA.

Other charitable work includes serving as a coach for Babson’s Coaching and Leadership for Teamwork Program, on Hill House Council (a community organization), the Nichols House Museum Committee, as a parent-teacher coordinator, and supporting numerous community events and fundraisers. With a background in marketing and working for entrepreneurial companies, she brings for-profit experience and insight to the non-profit world.

Previously, Christine worked as a Vice President for Progress Partners, an investment bank and corporate advisory firm. With an MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, and a concentration in marketing, Christine is passionate about Raising A Reader MA’s goal to end the literacy opportunity gap and excited to share her enthusiasm and entrepreneurial ideas with donors, partners, volunteers and her dedicated team. A few of her favorite children’s books include Wild About Books and The Story of Ferdinand.

Katee Duffy

Director of Programs

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Katee joined the Raising A Reader MA team in February 2020.  She has enjoyed  her entire career learning from children and families and supporting them in a variety of pediatric settings including childcare, home visiting, and child welfare.

Katee is a National Certified Counselor with an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University and a graduate degree in Counseling and School Psychology, specializing in Early Childhood Counseling and Child Development. Her clinical interests include adoption, early childhood mental health, assessment, children’s literature, and early literacy.  Several of Katee’s favorite picture books include I Feel a Foot!, NOT A BOX, and MEAN SOUP.

Benjy Kantor

Director of Development

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Benjy joined the Raising A Reader MA team in January 2022, bringing 20+ years of development and community engagement experience. Prior to RAR-MA, he served in a leadership role at the historical society in his hometown of Newton, MA, where his favorite program was a weekly book-and-craft series for young kids, focusing on literacy, history, and play. 

As the parent of two creative and hilarious kids, his favorite time of day is reading to/with them before bedtime. Two books they particularly enjoy together are Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau, by Andrea Beaty, and Matt de la Peña’s Last Stop on Market Street. Benjy’s experience understanding and advocating for dyslexic family members drives his personal passion for the mission of RAR-MA. 

Benjy is a graduate of Brandeis University, with degrees in African/African-American Studies and Women’s Studies, which are part and parcel of his interest in 20^th and 21^st century civil rights. As a former radio DJ, Benjy’s love of books and libraries (engrained in him by his parents, a teacher and a librarian) is surpassed only by his love for music, particularly that of independent artists. 

When reading on his own, Benjy absolutely loved Dan Harmon’s Bottom of the 33^rd about the longest professional baseball game ever played. Benjy is married to Lindsey, who is certainly more well read than he is, and he once ran into Big Papi in Sweetgreen. 

Maria Mombeleur

Associate Program Director

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Maria joined the Raising A Reader MA team in September of 2012. She immigrated to America in 1996 from the Cape Verde Island and immediately fell in love with books, especially Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel.

Maria earned her Bachelors of Science in Communications from Regis College in May of 2010. Upon graduation, she worked to decrease underage access to alcohol in Brockton.

Most recently, Maria earned her Masters of Science in Organizational and Professional Communications also from Regis College. As a Brockton resident for over 15 years, Maria is delighted to be part of the RAR team and to bring books home to more children in the City of Champions- Brockton.

Guadalupe Panameño

Senior Program Manager

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Guadalupe was introduced to Raising A Reader MA through a playgroup her two children attended. Later, she became a facilitator at that playgroup. In 2013, Guadalupe joined Raising A Reader MA as a Parent Ambassador.

When she was a child, she had no books at home, but her father read the newspaper together with her every night. This experience has motivated her to reach parents and show them the importance of reading.

Her childhood dream was to become a teacher. She is still looking forward to start her education in Early Childhood soon. Being a Parent Ambassador opened a new path for Guadalupe to help her community, and she eventually became a staff member as Parent Liaison, helping to coordinate all of the Parent Ambassadors.

In the fall of 2018, Guadalupe was promoted once again to a full-time position as Program Coordinator, and in August 2019 to Program Manager serving Greater Boston. She feels grateful to contribute to such a wonderful organization.

Some of her favorite children’s books now include Froggy Gets Dress, Snuggle Puppy of Mine, The Very Hungry Bear and The Red Ripe Strawberry.

Isaí Jiménez

Associate Program Director

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Isaí joined Raising A Reader MA at the end of 2019 as the Program Coordinator for Greater Boston. He comes with over 6 years of teaching and coordination experience. Throughout his career he has worked with people from all over the world as an English and Spanish instructor. He’s passionate about languages and one of his goals is to become a polyglot. He has a bachelor’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and recently finished a certification as a medical interpreter.

He fondly remembers sharing books with his grandmother, some of his favorite books to read when he was young include Where the Wild Things Are, The Little Prince, Robinson Crusoe and all sort of comic books. He personally identifies with RAR-MA mission of closing the literacy opportunity gap by empowering families to develop shared reading routines. He’s motivated to reach families and help them realize the value of reading for young children.

Tara Ruby

Grants Manager

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Tara is proud to return to Raising A Reader MA in 2020 as the Grants Manager. She was previously the organization’s Founding Program Manager in Boston, where she worked with partners, parents, implementers, and other community agencies to deliver RAR-MA’s dual interventions. An unquenchable love of books, learning, and words was fostered through the home reading routines of her own childhood, providing Tara with an initial passion for, and personal understanding of, the role that literacy and family engagement play in a child’s development. Adding that to her own unique program team experiences allows Tara to bring new depth to grant narratives as RAR-MA continues to confront education inequities in Massachusetts.

Tara graduated from Northeastern University with a BA in International Affairs, having leveraged a scholarship into opportunities to study in the Dominican Republic, Egypt, and Cuba, as well as participate in an Arab-Western student conference on women’s issues in Abu Dhabi. She later earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from University of Notre Dame of Maryland in 2012, teaching general and special education in Baltimore City for several years. Tara’s work experiences have centered around youth programming and education, including roles at Hyde Square Task Force, Sociedad Latina, Massachusetts State House, Baltimore City Public Schools, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Lancaster.

She joins the team remotely from Pennsylvania, where Tara also continues to invest time in local community organizing efforts, empowering youth civic engagement, thinking about how the structures of our society contribute to oppression, and advocating for the role of education as a transformative power for individuals, communities, and the entire world.

Will McMahon

Development and Communications Manager

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Will joined Raising A Reader MA in November of 2021. When he was 7, he informed his mother that he did not need to complete his math homework because he was “more of a words guy anyways.”

Upon graduating with a marketing degree from Emerson College, he spent the better part of his twenties working in schools with grades PreK-8th and as a special education aide. He has experience as a coach and camp leader and is happy to explain how to make ice cream out of ziploc bags, rock salt and half & half. That, unsurprisingly, was the hit of science camp. His work with 3-6 year olds allowed him to pursue one of his true passions, doing silly voices as he reads aloud.

After reading his first book, Go Dogs, Go!, he continued to voraciously consume the written word. He credits his parents’ love of reading and writing, an early introduction to Shel Silverstein and Roald Dahl, and a strong humanities education for his comfort in and abilities around communication – and his tendency towards the ridiculous and verbose.

Will has his Master’s degree in Management from Lesley University and enjoys reading in the woods or on his deck with his wife and dog, Sherlock Bones, P.I. His favorite children’s authors are Jon Sciezka (The Stinky Cheese Man), Eric Carle, and Sandra Boynton. Some of his other favorites are If You Give A Moose A Muffin, Where the Wild Things Are, and Make Way For Ducklings.

Lindsay Woods

Executive Administrator and Data Analytics Manager

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Passionate about lifelong learning, Lindsay Woods graduated from George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs in 2014, minoring in Spanish and Sociocultural Anthropology. Following graduation, Lindsay spent five years working in state government programming focused on creating systems of support for individuals arriving to the United States with refugee status.

In 2020, Lindsay turned her focus towards the role of libraries as community connectors, pursuing a Masters degree in Library Science from Texas Woman’s University, working as a Library Assistant with a local public library, and gaining an increased appreciation of the role of parents and caregivers as their child’s first teachers. 

Amy Dolan

Program Manager

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Amy was raised in the mountains in Southern California by two readers that gave her the gift of reading. Her favorite early memories are reading with her parents and sister and getting to go to the library where she got to pick out her own books. To her parents’ credit and to their dismay she often could be found reading instead of doing her chores and often had to get her books taken away as a result.

She graduated from Gordon College in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature and Linguistics. Here Amy was able to further expand her love of stories while also gaining a newfound appreciation for the intricacies of language, both spoken and written.

Alongside her desire to bring literacy to communities to promote academic success, Amy also wants to share in the joys of literature and the amazing places it can take a child. Some of her favorite books growing up were Harry Potter, Curious George, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Corduroy.

Claudia Chavarria

Community Ambassador Coordinator

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Claudia was born in El Salvador and lived there until the age of 25.  There she studied Modern Languages, French and English at the University of El Salvador.  In 2021 she moved to the United States.  She is the proud mom of two beautiful children and a Sunday school teacher at her church. 

Claudia loves working with kids.  She was introduced to Raising A Reader Massachusetts’ Red Bookbag in 2016 through a play group, when her oldest was four years old and younger daughter was one.  Story time was always their favorite part.  In 2018, she began to volunteer as a community ambassador with RARMA. 

Since then, she has been learning and sharing the importance and the impact of early literacy.  She especially loves to read books with no word to kids, where they can create their own stories.  Some of her favorite children’s books are: I Really Like Slop by Mo Willems, The Little Red Hen, and The Secret Garden.

Hugo Rengifo

Program Manager

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Hugo joined the Raising a Reader MA in July 2022.

He immigrated to America in 2012 from Colombia. Hugo is an extroverted person with the capacity of connecting with people very easily through creative thinking combined with the adoption of more culturally responsive approaches. 

Hugo Earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in Sociology from University of Massachusetts Boston while working at Cambridge Health Alliance in several positions as liaison for immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, older adults, and other vulnerable populations.  He recently earned an MBA from Babson College with a focus on entrepreneurship and leadership and he is preparing to start his second Master’s in September. 

Hugo believes that early literacy can impact not only the development of imagination, creativity, vocabulary, and concentration but can also reduce social and health disparities. Literacy in the early years helps children build self-knowledge and create interpretations of the world around them. If this function is fulfilled, it is more likely that the child will naturally develop a taste for learning and they will be more empathetic to others.
His favorite children’s books are Giraffes Can’t Dance by Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees and the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Tatiana Keane Forero

Program Manager

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Tatiana joined Raising a Reader MA in 2019 as Community Ambassador as a result of her searching for early literacy and literature for her toddler in the Greater Boston area. She previously worked at The Gaston Institute for the Latino Community in Massachusetts at UMass Boston, where she expanded her knowledge of the challenges that immigrant groups experience with language barriers and socioeconomic disparities, including the lack of access to books, literacy programs, and support for early childhood.

Books have been an essential element in her life. Some of the most influential authors from her childhood include Rafael Pombo, Jules Verne, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jose Saramago, and Garcia Marquez. Her passion for reading led her to earn a BA in Education & Literature in Colombia (and to use it to teach in Elementary Schools for 8 years!), and a Dual Language Certificate at UMass Boston.

From her professional experience as a teacher, she can attest to the advantages of early access to books for children in building enjoyable reading habits, Kindergarten readiness, broader use of vocabulary, and developing a longer attention span. As an immigrant herself from Colombia, and mother of a baby and a toddler, she knows first hand the daily challenges of introducing reading & literacy routines at home. Now, she has the opportunity to provide tools and instruction through dialogic reading to families and caregivers with RAR MA.

As a mom of two young children, she is always learning about new books. Some of her children’s favorite books at the moment are: Tiny T-Rex and the Impossible Hug by Jonathan Stutzman, The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith, and The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl.