Board of Directors
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Anne Rygiel is a native of Birmingham, Alabama, and Executive Director of the Mid-Alabama chapter of the Red Cross. Prior to this she worked for 11 years as Executive Director of Firehouse Ministries, a nonprofit that served chronically homeless men through emergency sheltering, direct services, and housing. She holds a Master's in Social Work from the University of Alabama.
Anne has served on many boards and advisory committees addressing mental health issues, veteran’s issues, and homelessness, and is very involved in raising public awareness about topics surrounding systemic poverty in the Deep South.
Anne has received numerous awards for her service and leadership, including the White Wolf award for homeless advocacy, Hoover Citizen of the Year, BBJ Top 40 Under 40, Nonprofit of the Year award, and was a finalist for CEO of the Year. She is a member of the 2019 class of Leadership Birmingham, the 2025 class of Leadership Hoover, and Harvard’s Young American Leaders Program class of 2024.
Board President
Reginald Turnier
Executive Director
Reginald Turnier is a writer, musician, peace activist, and the steward of his family's ancestral lands in southeastern Haiti. For the past 20 years he has lived in Haiti full-time, leading an effort to restore these lands through sustainable development practices, working in close collaboration with local stakeholders.
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He has served on the Boards of various nonprofit organizations, including Kay Angel, an orphanage for children with HIV and other serious medical conditions. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, he served as Administrative Director for an emergency birthing clinic run by the international midwifery organization Bumi Sehat.
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Reginald is also Co-Founder and Logistics Coordinator of the Haitian Machete Fencing Project, and worked as a consultant on the award-winning documentary film Papa Machete. He is co-author of the book Haitian Machete Fencing: The Avril Family Method.
