This fall, FGC welcomes Shaina Robinson as our Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) Fellow for the 2019 service year and Lori Piñeiro Sinitzky, who is our first Spiritual Deepening Program Fellow!

Before coming to FGC, Shaina was raised in Ann Arbor, MI, a town known by many Friends for its long, celebrated tradition of social justice engagement and community activism. While she pursued her education at Bryn Mawr College, she served as vice president of the Bryn Mawr Self-Government Association (the first and oldest self-governed student government of higher education in the United States), founded and presided over the Bryn Mawr United Students Against Sweatshops, and supported the school’s Leadership Empowerment and Advancement Program (LEAP) as a student coordinator. She completed her first QVS service year in Boston in 2018, working with the with the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund (LEAF).

For her 2019 service year, Shaina will serve as our Ministry on Racism Support Specialist. She will work closely with FGC’s Ministry on Racism as well as the Committee for Nurturing Ministries and the Institutional Assessment Working Group. She will help coordinate Quaker attendance at the 2019 White Privilege Conference (WPC) in Cedar Rapids, IA and will assist with the Pre-Gathering Retreat for Friends of Color at the 2019 FGC Gathering in Grinnell, IA, plus other events facilitated by the Ministry on Racism. She will also reach out to Yearly Meetings in the United States and Canada to share the work of the Ministry on Racism and the progress of the Institutional Assessment on Racism.

Lori, our Spiritual Deepening Program Fellow, is a Philadelphia transplant from New York. She is a Quaker educator with 15 years of experience in Friends schools, including Greene Street Friends School in Germantown (where she developed and clerked the Quaker Ways committee for 7 years) and Friends School of Mullica Hill in South Jersey. 

Lori fosters a deep commitment to Quaker ways and social justice, which is what inspired her to bring her talents to FGC. As the Spirital Deepening Program Fellow, she will support the development of Spiritual Deepening Program content for adults and children. She will also coordinate work with volunteers and participate in broader promotional and planning efforts for the program. Outside of FGC, she serves Philadelphia Yearly Meeting as the Young Friends Program Facilitator and is a dedicated mom to her children, Aaron and Lucy. She is a member of Green Street Monthly Meeting and participates in the Worship and Ministry committee. She was previously a member at Woodstown Monthly Meeting in South Jersey.

Please join us in welcoming Shaina and Lori to FGC!