The Casey Feldman Foundation Welcomes Two New Board Members
The Casey Feldman Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of two new board members to the Foundation’s board of directors: John Bair and Janine Repka. The Board provides the Casey Feldman Foundation leadership for carrying out the Foundation’s mission to provide financial support to individuals, groups, and institutions whose interests and goals align with those of Casey. This includes providing scholarships to deserving students and promoting safe driving through our sponsored site, EndDD.org (End Distracted Driving).
Janine Repka is the Assistant Director of Leadership Giving at St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey. She has previously worked at Mount Sinai Health Systems as a major gift coordinator and then project manager and at Atlantic Theater Company as manager of individual giving and special events.
Janine’s relationship with the Feldman family began back in 2006 when she and Casey were randomly selected to be roommates at Fordham University their freshman year. The two immediately hit it off, becoming best friends and choosing to remain roommates the following two years, until the time of Casey’s death. Prior to being asked to officially join the Board, Repka has worked with the Foundation on a variety of projects, including writing blog posts, managing their social media accounts and giving presentations about the dangers of distracted driving at high schools and museums in Pennsylvania.
Coming from a career in nonprofit fundraising, Repka hopes to put those skills she has developed in her personal career to good use at the Casey Feldman Foundation. She looks forward to expanding fundraising and scholarship opportunities as well as promoting Casey’s story and inspiring others to examine their dangerous driving habits.”I am thrilled to be able to continue to honor Casey’s life through working more closely with the Foundation,” said Janine.
John Bair is the owner and founder of Milestone Consulting, the co-founder (along with his wife Amy) of the Bairs Foundation, and an active member of the Association for Justice (AAJ) . Bair first became connected with Casey’s parents, Joel Feldman and Dianne Anderson (founders of the Foundation) in 2010, right after the launch of EndDD.org. Casey’s story really resounded with Bair, whose daughter was a freshman in high school at that time, and he seized the opportunity to get involved with the organization.
Bair is joining the Board with three fundamental strategic issues he hopes to tackle. First, he hopes to advise and counsel the founders in an attempt to help them actualize their long-term goals for the Casey Feldman Foundation. Secondly, he hopes to fundraise for the Foundation to create a viable and systematic flow of money into the Foundation so that the organization can fully focus on spreading awareness and teaching others the dangers of driving distracted. Finally, Bair hopes to help the Foundation network throughout the country to recruit other strong willed advocates to support the organization in whichever ways they are capable.
“I didn’t appreciate how much of an epidemic we were sitting in the middle of,” Bair explained when asked why he ready to take on a bigger role in the Foundation. “Being exposed to Joel and Dianne’s loss— Casey being killed— was a wakeup call. I recognized that I was an unsafe driver and I drove distracted. The personal message delivered by Joel, that we can all make such a huge difference in our communities and in the networks of people we are close to, by just becoming an advocate made me think.”
