Stacie Blake, Executive Director

Stacie welcomed nearly 200 refugees per year to Vermont from Somalia, Burundi, Bosnia, Sudan and Congo, as Director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, a field office of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.  She expanded the Vermont Interpreting and Translating program and helped advocate for privileged communication protections for both spoken language and interpreters for the Deaf.  She was appointed to the Governors Workforce Council on Equity and Diversity by both Governor Howard Dean and Governor Jim Douglas.  When leaving the program to move to Florida, she was recognized by the Vermont Legislature with a Joint Resolution of Appreciation for her work with refugees and immigrants across the state.
She became Administrator of the Florida Center for Survivors of Torture, a program of Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services in 2005.  The program grew to include the National Partnership for Community Training and two torture treatment programs, (Tampa Bay and Miami), and Refugee Youth and Family programs in five Florida counties.  She expanded interpreting services locally, growing the VOICES program to include 15 languages and making it available to community providers outside the agency.
She previously served as an elected member of the Huntington School Board and as a representative on the Executive Board of the Mount Mansfield Union School District.  She received the Marshall Dimock Alumni Award for Excellence in Public Service from the Public Administration Program at the University of Vermont.  She is an Associate of the Snelling Center for Government-Vermont Leadership Institute.  Currently, she is a member of the Project PRO$PER Loan Committee, a program to support newly arrived working immigrants with financial education, loans and matched savings.
Stacie has published several journal, newspaper and magazine articles covering such diverse topics as refugee integration, welcoming communities, depression, anxiety among distinct survivor groups, and the planning and evaluation of programs.