OUR TEAM
Chairman
Ammar B. Mufleh
Ammar B. Mufleh has extensive experience as a social entrepreneur creating solutions to empower people and communities to actualize their talents and maximize finite resources. His work in leading for-profit and serving on non-profit boards of directors informed his passion to create a foundation whose mission is to form pathways towards equitable access to food and educational attainment.
Ammar’s experiential knowledge as a refugee and immigrant along with his emersion traveling and living throughout the world, specifically the global south, infused by his academic and professional endeavors, offer him a unique “lens” to strategize solutions for communities and industries in emerging markets. He attributes his personal and professional success to those family, friends, teachers, and strangers who showed compassion and a willingness to help a fellow human that felt “out of place”.
Special Advisor
David L. Montague
David L. Montague has 30 + years of senior leadership and management experience, including various roles on boards and advisory councils, working across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the USA. Of these, 20 + years have been with World Vision International (WVI) in Africa. David has been a founding National Director (Swaziland), Acting National Director (South Africa, Kenya, Mali), Interim National Director (Niger, Ghana, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Kenya), Operations Director (Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Liberia), and more recently, Interim Regional Director in East (Nairobi), West (Dakar), and southern (Johannesburg) Africa.
Director of Giving
David Chavez
David Chavez is a first-generation Mexican- American born in South Central Los Angeles. Both his parents are immigrants from Mexico. Life as an immigrant was not kind to his parents so at a young age his family moved back to Mexico and was raised by his family in a rancho. At the age of 5, his family moved back to Los Angeles. Identified as an English Language Learner, he was limited to the resources and access other students had. As a third-grader he already knew he needed to reclassify and remove the limiting EL label. Once the label was removed, he was able to navigate his educational trajectory into the GATE program. This was able to lead him out of the inner city elementary, into a more resourceful educational path.
He is now an administrator for a science-based elementary school that leads his staff and students with a social justice lens that anything is possible as long as you work hard, value yourself and those that care for you and make good choices with integrity and good character. He has served on national non-profit educational boards, created non-profit organizations to help at-risk youth, and brings awareness to special education programs for families that do not understand the policies that govern and provide resources for them.
Director of Finance
Carlos I. Ruiz
Carlos Ruiz immigrated at a very young age from Nicaragua to the U.S., alongside his sister and parents, as asylum seekers. His life experiences growing up in an underprivileged home by parents who sacrificed it all helped him learn the importance of education and paying it forward to the youth and Latino community. He has worked in a financial capacity in the public and non-profit sector for the last decade and uses these skill sets, coupled with his passion for advocacy and mentorship, as a community leader in NW Ohio, serving on multiple boards and committees, particularly those geared towards promoting the advancement of marginalized communities.
We decided to represent our team with images from their earlier years—when their journeys to who they are today were just unfolding…
