Caressa joined CAASE in 2024 and is passionate about the nexus between community, justice, and gendered racial in/equity. Before joining CAASE, her passions led her to serve as a two-time AmeriCorps volunteer (NCCC 2016-17 and VISTA 2020) as well as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Lesotho 2017-2019). Her first AmeriCorps experience was as an in-school tutor and mentor for a small group of “at-risk” middle school students. Her second AmeriCorps experience was in her hometown of Kansas City Missouri where she worked on the administration and development team of a small anti-racism organizing cohort called The Open Table KC Anti-Racism Trainings. While in Peace Corps Lesotho, she worked alongside staff in a primary school to develop phonics teaching skills and she joined their efforts to implement in-school sex education and afterschool HIV/AIDS prevention programs as well as establish a community garden for the community’s most vulnerable (especially young girls). Along the way, she earned an MA in Anthropology and a dual BA in Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies and German Studies from the University of Chicago where she studied gendered (counter)imaginaries of revolution, criminality and flight amongst a set of German gangsta rappers. Caressa now uses the varied and eclectic skill set gained from these experiences to support CAASE’s growth as we join our communities in the fight against sexual harm and as we continually center our most marginalized survivors.