IRTF Staff

Co-Directors

Brian Stefan-Szittai
brian@irtfcleveland.org 

Brian Stefan-Szittai came to the InterReligious Task Force staff in 1999, bringing to IRTF several years of experience in community organizing and advocacy for immigrant rights in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Brian co-managed a shelter for Central American refugees, organized support from faith communities through the Border Association for Refugees from Central America (BARCA), and worked to move unaccompanied minors out of detention and reunite them with relatives.  Also through BARCA, Brian did community organizing with Mexican immigrant families in rural colonias that lacked basic infrastructure (potable water, waste water systems, paved roads) and services (postal delivery, school buses).  During his years on the Texas/Mexico border, Brian served as chair of the Refugee Rights Coalition, director of the Peace and Justice Commission at his church, and co-director of the Coalition of Colonia Service Agencies. Returning to Ohio in the 1990s, Brian taught sociology at Bowling Green State University-Firelands College and Lorain County Community College, as well as ESL (English as a Second Language).

Through IRTF, Brian has organized NE Ohioans in support of worker justice (fair trade and anti-sweatshop campaigns), LGBTQ solidarity, and immigrant defense. He helped to coordinate Ohio’s first-ever LGBTQ delegation to Central America. Brian coordinates IRTF’s Rapid Response Network, which responds to 6 urgent human rights cases each month. He represents IRTF on the Steering Committee of Cleveland Jobs with Justice and the Immigration Working Group CLE.  Outside of IRTF, Brian is active with music and environmental stewardship ministries at his church, housing justice through the Community Land Trust, and hospitality for unhoused people through the Cleveland Catholic Worker Community.

Brian is a native of Massillon, Ohio, and graduate of Canton Central Catholic High School. Brian holds a BA in Political Science (Bowling Green State University) and an MA in Sociology (Syracuse University), with concentrations in ethnic identity and conflict resolution.  

C Stonebraker-Martínez
c@irtfcleveland.org 

C was raised in the legacy industrial city of Youngstown, Ohio. C devotes passion for social justice to their union-laborer father and concern for Latin American solidarity to their mother, who found refuge in the US from Medellin, Colombia, during the height of the civil war in the 1980s. C received a BA in International Management from Hiram College and an MA/MEd in Higher Education Administration and Counseling from Kent State University.  At Kent, C worked in Student Affairs, coordinated experiential education, civic engagement and service learning trips, taught Student Development and Leadership courses and served on the staff Sustainability, Equity and Professional Development committees.  While studying at Hiram College, C helped with the creation of the 501c3 Hiram Farm Living and Learning community for people with autism, and co-founded the Olive Branch fair trade store at Hiram College. 

C Stonebraker-Martinez joined the IRTF staff in 2013. They have served as a representative to the United Nations for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (iFOR), Co-Chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR/FORUSA), Co-Moderator of the Disciples Peace Fellowship (DPF), Chair of the Ohio Fair Trade Network (OFTN), on the Council of School of Americas Watch (SOAW), and as a steering committee member of the Ohio Poor Peoples Campaign (PPC) and Community Peacemaker Teams International. A proud abolitionist community organizer, organizing in the greater Cleveland area, with groups such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the Student Farmworker Alliance (SFA), Alliance for Fair Food with the Fair Food Program (AFF/FFP), Witness Against Torture (WAT), the Asociacion de Trabajadores del Campo Nicaragua (ATC), Refugee and Immigration Ministries with Disciples Home Missions (RIM DHM) and others. The groups they are currently organizing and helping to build with within grassroots communities in Cleveland are: Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition, Cleveland Immigration Working Group, Utilities 4 All + Water Equity, the NEO Medic Collective, NEO Worker Center, Cleveland Pandemic Response, Cleveland Jewish Collective, JVP, Rhizome House, SCC Faith Coalition, OURR Faith Coalition, and The Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community. They also love Clevelanders for Public Transit (CPT), the Social Justice Institute at Case Western Reserve University (SJI), the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity & Resistance, BLM Clevland, Palestinian Feminist Collective and Palestinian Youth Movement.   

Program Associates - volunteer corps members

Marc Alvarado marc@irtfcleveland.org 

Kady Manneh kady@irtfcleveland.org

Bookkeeper

Janet Allt, CPA
 

Key Volunteers

Wren, fair trade

Mary Hurley, HM - Rapid Response Network Coordinator

Ditte Wolin - database

Board of Trustees

Quinn Borders - Board Member, Finance Chair

Elizabeth Cusma - Secretary

Jordan Deskins - Board Member, Development Co-Chair

Sarah Ferrato - Board Member, Development Co-Chair

Tori Hamilton, Esq. - Co Chair

Kimberley Spates, CPA - Treasurer

Lisa Splawinski, Esq. - Board Member, Governance Chair

Emily Terry - Co-Chair

Megan Wilson Reitz - Board Member, Vision Chair