Jennifer Long

Co-Executive Director

Originally from Dallas, TX,  Jennifer Long has been the director of Casa Marianella since 1998.  Jennifer’s initial training and inspiration in homeless services was a year of service with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker in 1978. She received a degree in Social Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz and a Masters degree in ESL from UT Austin.

Patti McCabe

Co-Executive Director

Patti is from Austin, Texas. She attended Boston College and studied Psychology. She has traveled to Spain, Mexico and Italy. Her favorite destination so far is Mexico City. She decided to work at Posada to return the gift of hospitality to newcomers in need.

Melissa Buhrt

Managing Director

Originally from Indiana, Melissa started her journey at Casa Marianella in 2009 as a Keep Austin Housed Americorps member. Before coming to Austin, Melissa earned a degree in International Studies and Spanish from Indiana University Bloomington. She also attended Lauterstein Conway School of Massage and is a licensed massage therapist. She has studied in Barcelona, Spain and Costa Rica. She has traveled throughout Europe and Mexico. Melissa enjoys learning from Casa residents and community members and is constantly inspired by their strength and resiliency. She continues to to work at Casa because she loves the community that continues to grow and change. She wants to be a part of a community focused on welcoming immigrants.

Paula Blaha

Paula Blaha grew up in many places and came to Austin after high school to pursue a music degree from U.T., where she studied organ with Frank Speller and eventually received degrees in computer science and linguistics. She has lived for a month or two at a time in Tunisia, Egypt, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Mexico, and has traveled through many parts of Europe and Mexico.

Mercedes Wanguemert-Peña

Chapman College
Political Science – such a long time ago!

Julian Root

Julian grew up in Philadelphia, and worked as a musician and bicycle messenger. He later moved to Guatemala, where he spent four years managing a used bookstore and playing in the country’s only bluegrass band. He began volunteering and later working at Casa Marianella after returning to the US in 2019, keenly aware of the social divide in Guatemala which privileged his life there.

ESL Coordinator

At Casa since 2014, our ESL Coordinator brings a background of teaching English, Spanish, ESL, and intercultural studies in public and private schools (high school & middle school, college, adults), corporations, and nonprofits in the US, Latin America, and Spain, as well as working with international students and volunteer teams, leading cross-cultural service projects, and coaching.  Has multiple teaching certificates and graduate degrees and is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).  Our ESL Coordinator loves working with and equipping our dynamic, dedicated, and creative teachers, as well as contributing to all of Team Casa!

Laura Smith

Laura has a background in volunteering & advocating in shelters, with immigrants, and in Latin America since 1989. Most recently, she volunteered at Posada for ten years, doing Blessingways for pregnant moms and guiding new moms and their newborns in the early postpartum period. Working at Casa with a staff & clientele of determined, smart, caring, multilingual people is an exciting new adventure for her! She looks forward to contributing and growing in equal measure.

Justin Davis-Metzner

Neo-Austinite Justin is kind of bummed that he missed the real weirdness. He has managed to rationalize the Juneteenth paradox and even develop a taste for the swamp water coming out of local faucets as he settles into the Casa community. He is pleased as Punch to have found a place where his polyglotish ways don’t come off as putting on airs but, rather, serve an important role in making newcomers feel welcome.

Karen Dale Wolman

Grants Manager
Originally from New York, Karen Dale Wolman’s activism started in L.A. during the ACT-UP and Queer Nation days.  She then went to work for a mostly gay Latino AIDS organization, wrote a couple of novels, taught college and found grant writing as a way to support nonprofits.  As her grandparents and great-grandparents left Eastern Europe when it was very unsafe to be Jewish in that part of the world, the work of Casa Marianella is dear to her heart.  Karen earned a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Communication Arts and Media from Queens College, City University of New York.

Katie Tallman

As a child, Katie traveled to other far off places in the world through books. Her curiosity about the world led her to study International Studies and spend a year in Mexico studying Spanish in university. After graduating, she traveled to South America where she lived for five years and worked as an English teacher. Having found her way back to the U.S., she is grateful to be a part of the Casa community and part of immigrants’ and new community members’ lives

Olivia Amore Petipas

Olivia started at Casa Marianella after graduating from Colorado College in 2021. There she studied Spanish Literature and Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies. Throughout her studies, she participated in sanctuary and accompaniment movements in Colorado Springs and worked as a legal assistant for detained immigrants at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. Olivia is grateful for the opportunity to work against the U.S. deportation machine and accompany asylum seekers in Austin alongside her lovely co-workers. Outside of work you are likely to find Olivia in the garden.

Lina Franco

Lina grew up in Colombia and became an Asylee in the United States at the age of 13. She is a case manager at Casa Marianella and has a deeply strong connection to Casa’s purpose, staff, and residents.

Sarah Rutherford

Sarah grew up in Dallas and went on to study Religious Studies at Texas A&M University with minors in French and Sociology. She has long been interested in immigration and advocacy, and she was fortunate to find Casa Marianella when volunteering with a student organization during undergrad. She now works part-time at Casa Marianella while attending graduate school at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Sonja Engelstad

Originally from Iowa City, Iowa, Sonja began her Casa Marianella journey as an AmeriCorps member in 2021 after spending five years living and working in Argentina. She studied English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Denver and utilized her degree to teach English as a second language in Rosario, Argentina while studying Spanish at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Sonja always had the idea in the back of her mind to utilize her experiences and dedication to service to return to the U.S. and “help people at the border.” Landing at Casa Marianella has been all that and so much more. Sonja will utilize her penchant for organization in her new role as Administrative Director and hopes to learn and absorb as much information as she can from this beautiful community.

Glenda Sanchez

Glenda is originally from East Texas (Nacogdoches) and she studied at Texas State University, where she earned her bachelors in social work and is now pursuing her masters in legal studies. She plans to use her educational background in social work and legal studies to work with migrant populations in any way she can. She always had an interest to work with immigrants and refugees as she comes from a family of immigrants herself. She found Casa Marianella through Texas State and she began to intern at Casa in Spring of 2022. She enjoyed the work so much that she stayed and is currently taking on the role of Donations Coordinator and Case Manager.

Emelly Carvajal

Emelly is a first generation Mexican American, and she received her bachelors in Social Work from Texas State. She is currently enrolled in the Masters program in Legal Studies at Texas State. She started at Casa Marianella as an intern, but her love for immigration grew and inspired her to enter the legal studies program to learn more about immigration law and reform.

Inna Grudtcina

Inna was born and raised in Vladivostok, Russia. Over the last 18 years, she has been working as a dance teacher, and choreographer, and has performed in Russia, China, Spain, South Korea, and Jerusalem. She moved to the US in 2013 and in the first few years faced a lot of challenges as an immigrant. She knows for a fact that being an immigrant makes one very vulnerable and insecure. Without professional support and guidance, the assimilation process can take a very long time. She feels privileged to work at Posada Esperanza. Her main goal is to help bring more peace and clarity into immigrants’ lives and help them apply their skills and talents to eventually become self-sufficient members of the community. In her free time, she hangs out at coffee shops, meets with friends and takes care of her 1-year-old daughter.

 Jeannette Doumbe

Americorps staff member – bio coming soon!

Elise Harriger

Elise is one of the attorneys at Casa Marianella and director of the legal clinic. She works with asylum seekers and immigrant victims of crime. Her inspiration for doing immigration law came from the year she served as an Americorps member at Casa Marianella in 2004-05. She attended UT for undergrad and law school and Oxford University for grad school.

Sarah Woelk

Sarah has worked at the legal clinic since January 2011. After retiring from Texas state government, Sarah spent a year as an Americorps volunteer in a bilingual classroom. Her work with immigrant families led to her interest in immigration law.

Anna Clements

Anna grew up in Massachusetts, and then moved to Lewiston Maine to go to Bates college, where she pursued an interdisciplinary combination of politics, education, and sociology focused on social justice and inequalities. In college she got the chance to work in predominantly immigrant high school classrooms and after school programs. In light of increasing hostility and changing legislation for immigrants she left college eager to get involved in positive efforts to lessen the barriers faced by people entering and living in this country. After graduating she briefly wrote grants for a grassroots immigrant advocacy organization in New York City, before moving to Austin to work at Posada Esperanza. She is so happy to get to work one on one with people and families at Posada and to be learning from the wonderful and ever changing Posada community every day.

Stacey Eyman

Bio coming soon!

Cindy Hall

Ever since being offered the choice to learn French or Spanish in middle school, Cindy has pursued her interests in foreign language learning. Having decided to go the French route, Cindy pursued French classes through middle school, high school, and college where she earned her undergraduate degree in French from the University of Oregon. Having lived in France twice for a collective total of 16 months, Cindy was looking forward to finding multicultural opportunities in the USA. Originally from California, Cindy has spent the last 13 years living in the Pacific Northwest immersed in rain and missing the sun. Luckily, in the pursuit of sunshine and French language opportunities, Cindy found Posada Esperanza, a place to rest her rain soaked feet that also gives her the privilege of being able to help immigrants in the Austin community.

Benny Rangell

Benny is the medical advocate for Abri Lumiere. He grew up in Santa Cruz CA and was based in the San Francisco Bay Area until moving to western Massachusetts. Benny holds masters degrees in Translation Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, and is excited to learn more about connecting Casa residents to health-related services here in Austin.

Ashanti Ellis

I’m Ashanti Ellis. I attend Huston Tillotson University with a major of Psychology. I’m in an honors society called Pi Gamma Mu that represents all students serving honors academically. My next goal is to attend graduate school of Fall 2023 for Industrial Psychology

Molly Brown

Molly recently got a degree in social work while working in community mental health and addictions recovery in Detroit. Now that she is back in Austin, she is excited to be supporting families in transition and learning from the awesome Casa community. She is currently also beginning yoga teacher training and pursuing her MSW with aspirations to advance as a humanistic social worker and lifelong student of how awareness and movement can transform our capacity and experience.