Marissa Castro Mikoy embarked on her career post college in the Lower East Side of Manhattan as an Americorps VISTA* volunteer for the nonprofit University Settlement. After her time in New York, she returned to her home state of Texas and led an Even Start Family Literacy Program for under-resourced families in West Dallas. The program focused on arming parents with the skills and knowledge to not only to be their child’s first and most important teacher in life, but to also propel their own education by way of attaining their GED and gaining access to college or a trade. Marissa then went to work with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and raised over $1 million on behalf of hundreds of different local, state and national non-profits through the State Employee Charitable Campaign and the Dallas City Charitable Campaign. She then moved to Washington, DC, and went to work for First Book, a national literacy non-profit that provides free books to schools and non-profits throughout the United States. Here she traveled the United States mobilizing and organizing at the community and grassroots level in raising awareness and funds in effort to provide free books to under-resourced children. Wanting to return to making more of a “direct impact”, Marissa went to work for a DC community based organization, CentroNia where she was the founding Director of a bilingual early childhood satellite location for over 100 under-resourced families in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. After leading that program for four years, she went to work for the DC Public Charter School Board where she served as an early childhood specialist and oversight officer for DC Public Charter Schools. Marissa recently moved back to her home state of Texas and serves as the Director of Operations and Evaluation for an education reform, principal preparation non-profit, the Teaching Trust. She lives in Richardson, Texas with her husband Chris and 2 year old son, Xavier.