Our Board

Founder and President, Alicia Jean Demetropolis

     In 2017, Alicia Jean Demetropolis spent three months traveling in the Kathmandu area, assisting a local NGO with assessing elder care facilities and rewriting their volunteer program. She took food and water to the homeless seniors and youths living in the streets, and also trained local medical professionals and EMTs in the use of gait belts. Her book, Drowning in Now: A Search for God and Humanity at the Top of the World, is an account of her spiritual journey and the story of how The Global Humanity Initiative was started. Fifteen percent of the proceeds from the sale of Drowning in Now go to The Global Humanity Initiative, benefiting impoverished elders around the world.

     Along with being a CNA/Med Tech at a local assisted living facility, Alicia is certified in palliative care, and in spiritual care for end of life patients. Her daily focus is on providing physical and spiritual care to people so they can transition from this world with peace, grace and dignity.

     Prior to this work, Alicia spent 30 years in the global corporate world. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature, and an MS in International Business and Finance.

     Alicia lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her husband, Doc. Their life is filled with rescuing older, special-needs dogs, and giving them their best life for the remainder of their years.

 

Co-Founder and Secretary & Treasurer,
Catherine Demes Maydew

    Catherine has served large for-profit companies as well as both large and small non-profit and governmental organizations. At KPMG LLP, she was an Assurance Specialist with a focus in government and non-profit entities, including large non-profit hospitals and foundations, as well as the light manufacturing and investment/banking industries.

     As an independent CPA, her clients have included Scott Residential Management, LLC, and the Omaha Community Playhouse. Along with previously serving as an adjunct accounting professor at Creighton University, Catherine has also received the 2010 Chapter Service Award from the Association of Government Accountants at their July 2010 meeting in Orlando.

     Catherine is proud to be a business partner for the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. She serves on the following boards:

• Omaha Academy of Ballet

• Joslyn Castle

• St. John Greek Orthodox Church Audit Board

• Nebraska Society of CPAs

• Association of Government Accountants

     Additionally, Catherine is also Past Chair of the Nebraska Elementary & Secondary Finance Authority and Past Chair of the NSCPA Non-profit Committee. She lives in Omaha with her husband, a diagnostic radiologist. Their son, an avid snowboarder who works in addiction recovery, lives in Colorado. Alicia is his ridiculously-proud auntie.

Vice President, Lana Byal

    Lana has over 20 years’ experience in international travel, having both studied and worked abroad throughout her career. She holds a Masters of Science from the University of Oxford where she focused on biodiversity conservation, climate change, and international development.

     Currently, she is the Director of Meaningful Travel, Sales and Product Development with Elevate Destinations, a premier, international philanthropic travel company based in the United States. In her work, she liaises with many non-profit organizations, many of which focus on the education of women and children and environmental conservation in the Global South. Prior to Elevate Destinations, she was an independent safari consultant working on unique and specialized trips to East Africa. Her overall background includes years of academic research, volunteering, and working in natural-resource related jobs. Some of her international experiences include in India, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica and Africa.

     Additionally, Lana spent many years working in organic agriculture and managing farms in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, as well as managing a seasonal, on-site office for a boutique salmon operation in Bristol Bay, Alaska.

     Lana is passionate about wildlife and habitat conservation and the education and empowerment of many of the world’s most vulnerable stakeholders, such as women and children. She enjoys life on the Olympic Peninsula with her husband and their two ranch dogs.

Founding Board Member, Maia Cosio

     Maia deeply believes that everyone deserves to know that someone is in their corner, cheering them on.

     She was born in Athens, Greece, to world traveling hippies who taught her to value education and appreciate the world. During her middle school years, her father took a Fulbright exchange in Cyprus for a year, and this gave the family the opportunity to travel to Turkey and Egypt, and then back to Greece. She attended Cal State Monterey Bay with a focus on Social Anthropology. During her college years, Maia volunteered every week at the local soup kitchen, and spent one summer studying at The Center for Cross Cultural Studies in Seville, Spain. After college, she spent ten months in Ecuador working for a non-profit, and has also traveled in Peru.

     She was blessed to have an amazing grandfather who was active with his church and in his community. She watched as he took food to local shut-ins, week after week. He taught her about the simplicity of compassion, and how to understand people just by being kind. Maia has carried this philosophy with her throughout her adult life, and lives it daily in her job as a Chemotherapy Technician at the local Cancer Center. Her passion is in being there for her patients during their worst times, in creating a micro-community for them, and in being their support when they feel they can’t go on.

     Maia lives on the Olympic Peninsula, with her husband and their four children, one of whom has been diagnosed with autism. She proudly tells people that having a child who is on the spectrum has made the window of her life bigger and brighter. Along with hosting exchange students every year, their home is filled with four cats and two dogs, including a Chihuahua named Doug.

 

Board Member, Samantha Wright

     When Sam taught junior high school math, she would get confused stares whenever she told people how much she loved her job. People couldn’t believe that she enjoyed being around hundreds of preteens and young teenagers all day. Her response was always the same: They are the forgotten ones. In Sam’s experience, parents are always packed to the brim in elementary school classrooms, and in high school parents are constantly hovering to ensure their kids are prepared for success in college. In junior high school, though, kids seem to be forgotten about, at a time in their lives when they need love and support the most.

     Sam sees the correlation between preteens and the elderly community: They are both forgotten. The thought of putting her own parents or grandparents out in the street is incomprehensible to her. One of Sam’s favorite memories is staying up late playing Scrabble with her grandmother, who made her work for every win. She loves these memories of laughing and joking with her grandmother while mastering her Scrabble skills.

     She and her husband are the proud parents to twin girls, who keep them on their toes, and have two dogs, who add to the fun in their household. Sam and her husband work every day to teach their girls that we are responsible for leaving the world a better place than we found it. “We are not here to be selfish,” she says. “We are here to enjoy life, but also to care for the world around us and do whatever we can for those that need help, whether it’s in big ways or small.”