Leadership & Staff

Charlotte Dickson

Executive Director *

Charlotte has devoted her career to building organizations and movements to create equitable, healthy communities for people of all ages and backgrounds. Prior to joining Village Movement California, she served as the founding director of the HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Living) Cities Campaign, a nationally recognized movement of 400 cities in 5 states that promotes policies, programs and practices to support residents’ and employees’ health.

She has led endeavors in the fields of affordable housing, public health policy and racial equity. She welcomes the opportunity to help reframe aging and advocate for culture change around this important life stage. Charlotte has a B.A. from Duke University and an M.S.W. from Boston University.

* Please note, Charlotte is on leave till early 2024.

Carolyn Ross

Interim Executive Director & Director of Strategic Initiatives

Carolyn Ross has a passion for harnessing the wisdom of older adults to change how we experience the journey of aging. She served as the Executive Director of Care Connections Network (CCN) in Huntington Beach for ten years, helping develop and guide CCN through the planning and implementation phases to produce a thriving village of multi-racial members and volunteers. Carolyn is a strong supporter of the village movement and served as a member of the Village Movement California leadership team for two years. She worked as a consultant to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and as president of ALOA: Adult Lutherans Organized for Action to promote intentional programming and ministry for older adults in Lutheran congregations across the country.

Carolyn also currently serves as a board member of the Huntington Beach Council on Aging. She has a BA from California State University, Long Beach, and an MSW from California State University, Fullerton.

To reach Carolyn, call her at 714-874-4219 or email her at carolyn@villagemovementcalifornia.org

Carolyn’s mailing address is 3220 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA, 94118.

Patrick Shandrick

Communication Manager

Patrick empowers nonprofits and government agencies through advocacy and strategic communications. He served as a Communications Officer at the California Community Foundation where he helped guide the organization’s Los Angeles county-wide response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For many years, Patrick worked on behalf of the homeless in the Skid Row community at organizations Chrysalis and the Downtown Women’s Center. He has taught nonprofit communications at UCLA Extension, served on the City of West Hollywood’s Human Services Commission, and has consulted with clients including the City of Santa Monica and Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County.

He holds a Masters in Communications from the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California and a Bachelors in Marketing from Parsons School of Design at the New School.

To reach Patrick, email him at patrick@villagemovementcalifornia.org or call him at 310-919-8066.

Carol Haig

Newsletter Editor

Carol is a long-time writer and editor. She has more than 40 years of multi-industry experience partnering with organizations to improve their employees’ performance. She holds both a BS and MS in Secondary English Education. Carol is known for her superior skills in project management, analysis and problem/opportunity identification, and instructional design and facilitation. She has consulted with executives and line managers, established and managed training departments, trained trainers, written for professional publications and mentored performance consultants. As the co-chair of the former Walnut Creek Village, she remains committed to the village concept and is delighted to volunteer for Village Movement California.

Yvette Leung

Organization and Belonging Coach

Yvette advances organizational and systems change. She coaches individuals and teams on Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging, and collaborative leadership. She is best known for her large-scale, multi-sector strategic planning efforts that created city- county-school district partnerships (Center for Healthy Schools and Communities) and juvenile justice reform.

As a trainer for Quantum Culture and as a facilitator for the UNtraining, Yvette has led complex discussions among both BIPOC-only and mixed race participants on issues of race, bias and proximity to whiteness.

Yvette earned her Master’s in Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She is certified as an Organizational & Relationship Systems Coach (ORSCC) by the Center for Right Relationship Global (CRR Global), and as a certified conflict mediator through SEEDS Community Resolution. 

Melika Jalili

Masters Intern

Melika is a current Master of Public Health student concentrating in Health and Social Behavior, at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public health. She previously obtained her BA with distinction in Health Sciences from Simon Fraser University. Throughout her studies she became involved in Indigenous communities and took an interest in vulnerable populations and issues of social and health injustices. Moreover, she recognizes the importance of community support and reciprocity, and wants to do her part in giving back to the community by walking a path of reconciliation.

Her research interests include analyzing and examining social, structural and external determinants that hinder health and prevent health access in marginalized and vulnerable populations, with a focus in Indigenous populations. Additionally, she is passionate about emphasizing the importance of diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging in all settings, and anti-racism advocacy work. During the pandemic, she served as a lead on a Health & Safety COVID-19 team, which reconfirmed her passion for Public Health. She is presently working at the Berkeley Public Health Change Lab as a graduate researcher on various projects, including at Village Movement California to help foster community engagement and inclusivity in elder villages.

Kate Hoepke, Board Chair

Kate serves as the Chair of Village Movement CA and is the Executive Director of San Francisco Village. She has been in the field of aging since 2001 and with San Francisco Village since 2012. Under her leadership, SFV has grown exponentially. Her career in community building started in the 1990’s when she founded more than 40 social support networks for young families in the San Francisco Bay Area, called Mothers Clubs. To date these clubs have served more than a million families. She has a BA in sociology and an MBA from San Francisco State University.

Patrick Brown

Patrick played a lead role in establishing Sequoia Village and the Villages of San Mateo County (VSMC) and is currently board president for VSMC. He sits on the board of advisors for BlueCart, a startup in the food services area. He joined the board of Village Enterprise (a non-profit that works to alleviate poverty in East Africa) in 2013, after serving as Chief Operating Officer for five years. Prior to this, Pat worked for twenty years in the computer software industry. In his last position, he was the Senior Director of Technical Publications for Siebel Systems. Pat has a BA from UC Santa Barbara and an MA from California State University, Fresno, and completed doctoral work at UC Berkeley. Pat serves as the Treasurer for the Village Movement California Leadership Team.

Leza Coleman

Leza is the Legislative Director of the California Commission on Aging. She was introduced into the world of senior advocacy as a Long-Term Care Ombudsman, and later, after working as a marketing director for a large assisted living facility in Elk Grove, California, she resumed her advocacy efforts as the Executive Director for the statewide LTC Ombudsman Program Association. Having successfully navigated the legislative system, getting bills passed, and increased program funding, Leza is excited to share her knowledge, encouraging others to engage in systemic advocacy focused on changing the way we view “aging” in California.

She was exposed to Villages through her mother-in-law, Sandra Coleman, who served as the Village Chair for the North Oakland Village.

Carlene Davis

Carlene has twenty-five years of leadership in the public and non-profit sectors, and brings a comprehensive portfolio of expertise in policy and advocacy, community engagement and capacity building, convening and facilitation, organizational development, participatory research, training and curriculum development, program design, and project management. Carlene is the Co-Founder of Sistahs Aging with Grace and Elegance, and Director of Strategy and Evaluation at the California Black Women’s Health Project. Carlene researched and wrote Sankofa Stories: Black Women Reflect on Aging in Place and Community: A Narrative on Policy as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Fellow.

Carol Kitbayashi

Carol recently retired as Executive Director at Westside Pacific Villages (WPV) and currently serves on its Board of Directors.  She has over 25 years of corporate business experience as a Human Resources leader from a variety of industries, including the last 20 years of her “for-profit” career at a Global Fortune 100 Company.  Carol has a genuine passion for the village model having cared for her own parents, in-laws and other older relatives.  Her skills and abilities have been instrumental in revitalizing and growing WPV by creating and managing a strong village team, while developing and strengthening important relationships.  In her short tenure, WPV’s member and volunteer base as grown significantly, and she has been asked to speak to local, state, and national audiences about villages and the Village Movement.  Carol is a graduate of UCLA.

Erick Larson

Erick was a founding partner of Home and Value Advisors, Inc., a residential real estate development company with a focus on consulting, remodeling, and building single family homes in Marin and Sonoma Counties. His experience in real estate highlighted the growing need for senior housing and led to a new vision for property development for older adults, “Up-scaling by Down-sizing”, helping homeowners extract the equity from their homes to finance their retirement in a home with amenities and finishes designed for their needs.

He also managed two large senior residential facilities. Through this situation he was introduced to in-home care. He accepted a position as Regional Director of Operations for Sonoma, Marin, and Napa Counites with Hired Hands Home Care. He led countywide administrative teams with nearly 300 caregivers for 7 years.

Erick has entered the non-profit sector as Executive Director and Board Chair for the Village of Sonoma Valley. He currently serves on the Sonoma County Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council, and the Master Plan for Aging Steering Committee for Sonoma County.

Laura Peck

Laura is a trusted advisor and leadership coach to courageous leaders and organizations building a more just world. Direct, curious and irreverent, her sweet spot is framing the questions and hosting the conversations that move people into action.

A Philadelphia native, she moved to the Bay Area in a beat-up old Datsun in 1972 and never looked back. She has a BA from Cornell University and an MPH from UC Berkeley School of Public Health and is a certified yoga instructor. Before opening her own consulting business in 1995, she worked for Alameda County Health Care Services and northern California Kaiser Permanente.

A long time board member of Ashby Village, she led the Diversity Initiative as an ex officio member and collaborated on design and launch of the VMC Diversity Institute

A swimmer, yogini, and grandmother, she lives in Albany with her sensei/chef/photographer husband.

Avi Rose

Avi brings over thirty years of experience as a nonprofit leader in health and human service organizations, most recently as the Executive Director of Jewish Family and Community Services of the East Bay. He currently serves as the Interim Executive Director of Ashby Village. Avi brings enthusiastic interest in the big-picture question of how we mobilize multi-generations in all kinds of diverse communities to support people to age in place, and how we successfully advocate for public and private resources to achieve that vision.