Jennifer Long

Co-Executive Director

Originally from Dallas, TX,  Jennifer Long has been the director of Casa Marianella since 1998.  Jennifer’s initial training and inspiration in homeless services was a year of service with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker in 1978. She received a degree in Social Philosophy from UC Santa Cruz and a Masters degree in ESL from UT Austin.

Patti McCabe

Co-Executive Director

Patti is from Austin, Texas. She attended Boston College and studied Psychology. She has traveled to Spain, Mexico and Italy. Her favorite destination so far is Mexico City. She decided to work at Posada to return the gift of hospitality to newcomers in need.

Melissa Buhrt

Managing Director

Originally from Indiana, Melissa started her journey at Casa Marianella in 2009 as a Keep Austin Housed Americorps member. Before coming to Austin, Melissa earned a degree in International Studies and Spanish from Indiana University Bloomington. She also attended Lauterstein Conway School of Massage and is a licensed massage therapist. She has studied in Barcelona, Spain and Costa Rica. She has traveled throughout Europe and Mexico. Melissa enjoys learning from Casa residents and community members and is constantly inspired by their strength and resiliency. She continues to to work at Casa because she loves the community that continues to grow and change. She wants to be a part of a community focused on welcoming immigrants.

Paula Blaha

Paula Blaha grew up in many places and came to Austin after high school to pursue a music degree from U.T., where she studied organ with Frank Speller and eventually received degrees in computer science and linguistics. She has lived for a month or two at a time in Tunisia, Egypt, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Mexico, and has traveled through many parts of Europe and Mexico.

Mercedes Wanguemert-Peña

Chapman College
Political Science – such a long time ago!

Julian Root

Julian grew up in Philadelphia, and worked as a musician and bicycle messenger. He later moved to Guatemala, where he spent four years managing a used bookstore and playing in the country’s only bluegrass band. He began volunteering and later working at Casa Marianella after returning to the US in 2019, keenly aware of the social divide in Guatemala which privileged his life there.

ESL Coordinator

At Casa since 2014, our ESL Coordinator brings a background of teaching English, Spanish, ESL, and intercultural studies in public and private schools (high school & middle school, college, adults), corporations, and nonprofits in the US, Latin America, and Spain, as well as working with international students and volunteer teams, leading cross-cultural service projects, and coaching.  Has multiple teaching certificates and graduate degrees and is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI).  Our ESL Coordinator loves working with and equipping our dynamic, dedicated, and creative teachers, as well as contributing to all of Team Casa!

Laura Smith

Laura has a background in volunteering & advocating in shelters, with immigrants, and in Latin America since 1989. Most recently, she volunteered at Posada for ten years, doing Blessingways for pregnant moms and guiding new moms and their newborns in the early postpartum period. Working at Casa with a staff & clientele of determined, smart, caring, multilingual people is an exciting new adventure for her! She looks forward to contributing and growing in equal measure.

Karen Dale Wolman

Grants Manager
Originally from New York, Karen Dale Wolman’s activism started in L.A. during the ACT-UP and Queer Nation days.  She then went to work for a mostly gay Latino AIDS organization, wrote a couple of novels, taught college and found grant writing as a way to support nonprofits.  As her grandparents and great-grandparents left Eastern Europe when it was very unsafe to be Jewish in that part of the world, the work of Casa Marianella is dear to her heart.  Karen earned a Master of Professional Writing from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Communication Arts and Media from Queens College, City University of New York.

Katie Tallman

As a child, Katie traveled to other far off places in the world through books. Her curiosity about the world led her to study International Studies and spend a year in Mexico studying Spanish in university. After graduating, she traveled to South America where she lived for five years and worked as an English teacher. Having found her way back to the U.S., she is grateful to be a part of the Casa community and part of immigrants’ and new community members’ lives

Lina Franco

Lina grew up in Colombia and became an Asylee in the United States at the age of 13. She is a case manager at Casa Marianella and has a deeply strong connection to Casa’s purpose, staff, and residents.

Glenda Sanchez

Glenda is originally from East Texas (Nacogdoches) and she studied at Texas State University, where she earned her bachelors in social work and is now pursuing her masters in legal studies. She plans to use her educational background in social work and legal studies to work with migrant populations in any way she can. She always had an interest to work with immigrants and refugees as she comes from a family of immigrants herself. She found Casa Marianella through Texas State and she began to intern at Casa in Spring of 2022. She enjoyed the work so much that she stayed and is currently taking on the role of Donations Coordinator and Case Manager.

Emelly Carvajal

Emelly is a first generation Mexican American, and she received her bachelors in Social Work from Texas State. She is currently enrolled in the Masters program in Legal Studies at Texas State. She started at Casa Marianella as an intern, but her love for immigration grew and inspired her to enter the legal studies program to learn more about immigration law and reform.

Gabriel Salgado

Gabriel has been part of Casa, working in the benefits office, since the summer of 2022. He graduated from Lafayette College in 2020, volunteering in refugee resettlement during his time there while majoring in film and media. He loves watching and analyzing movies, playing ultimate frisbee, reading comics, and whenever it’s even a slightly clear night sky he’ll go through yet another bout of wishing he knew more about astronomy. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, he is grateful for the ability to do the work of the benefits office.

Alexandra Fowler

Inna Grudtcina

Inna was born and raised in Vladivostok, Russia. Over the last 18 years, she has been working as a dance teacher, and choreographer, and has performed in Russia, China, Spain, South Korea, and Jerusalem. She moved to the US in 2013 and in the first few years faced a lot of challenges as an immigrant. She knows for a fact that being an immigrant makes one very vulnerable and insecure. Without professional support and guidance, the assimilation process can take a very long time. She feels privileged to work at Posada Esperanza. Her main goal is to help bring more peace and clarity into immigrants’ lives and help them apply their skills and talents to eventually become self-sufficient members of the community. In her free time, she hangs out at coffee shops, meets with friends and takes care of her 1-year-old daughter.

Spencer Foster

Diana Piña

Grecia Arpi Nano

Mary Richardson-Perez