IRTF Staff

Co-Directors

Brian Stefan-Szittai 

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 was raised in Massillon, Ohio, and graduated from 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 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. C proudly serves on the board of the indigeous-led local collective, the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance. 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), VP of Disciples Justice Action Network (DJAN), 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 (OH-PPC) and Community Peacemaker Teams International (CPT). A proud abolitionist community organizer organizing in the greater Cleveland area; the groups they are currently organizing and helping to build within grassroots communities are: Cleveland Co-Op Circles, the Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition, Ohio Immigrant Alliance, the NEO Medic Collective, the NEO Worker Center, Cleveland Pandemic Response, Cleveland Jewish Collective, Interfaith Action for Palestine, and the Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community. They also love Clevelanders for Public Transit ("the other" CPT), BLM Clevland, OPAWL - building AAPI feminist leadership, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), Witness Against Torture (WAT), the Amigos del Asociacion de Trabajadores del Campo Nicaragua (ATC), US/Salvador Sister Cities, el Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad en El Salvador, NISGUA - the Network of Peoples in Solidarity with Guatemala, and others.

Program Associates - volunteer corps members

Marc Alvarado

Paul Salim Albert

Bookkeeper

Janet Allt, CPA
 

Key Volunteers

Wren, fair trade and Books 2 Prisoners Superstar

Mary Hurley, HM - Rapid Response Network Coordinator

Ditte Wolin - database administrator

Board of Trustees

Ape Bleakney - Development Chair

Elizabeth Cusma - Treasurer

Lex Jones - Co-Chair

Noelle Naser - Secretary

Diana Sette- Vision Chair

Emily Terry - Co-Chair

Megan Wilson Reitz - Governance Chair