Chairman

Sara grew up in Rumson, NJ and moved to Richmond, VA in 2001 to attend the University of Richmond. In her four years there she became involved in the campus ministry Rho Iota, the arm of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship geared toward students involved in greek life. Through that involvement she met IV staff worker Percy Strickland and his wife Angie and began to tutor with CHAT. When given the opportunity to pilot the CHAT internship program she jumped at the chance, although having very little idea what she was getting herself into. That summer she not only fell in love with the kids she worked with, but the community of Church Hill.

Fundraising Chair

Steve is a Pharmaceutical Sales Representative for Eli Lilly. He is an active member at Commonwealth Chapel in Richmond, VA. Steve has been active in CHAT since the fall of 2006. Among other things, he participated in Richmond Christain Leadership Institute in 2006 and is an active runner.

Finance Chair

Founding and permanent member of Church Hill Activities & Tutoring

Founding and permanent member of Church Hill Activities & Tutoring

A native of Richmond, VA, Alexandra is a graduate from Collegiate School and the College of William and Mary where she earned her B.S. in Mathematics and her M.A.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction. While a senior at William and Mary, she met Percy and Angie Strickland through Intervaristy Christian Fellowship. Little did she know that they would later become the founders of Church Hill Activities and Tutoring. When she returned to Richmond to teach math after earning her Master's degree, she reunited with the Stricklands at Third Presbyterian Church. She began tutoring with CHAT from the beginning and is a founding Board member. She has served as secretary of the Board and has also volunteered in the life skills cooking classes. Since 2001, she has taught math in Henrico County and then at Collegiate School, where she currently teaches Algebra, Geometry and Precalculus.

G.F. Pendleton, III founder and Principal of Vero Consulting has over 30 years of experience in banking, investments and insurance, including more than 16 years as a Principal and Director of Clark/Bardes.

Since 1974, Penn has worked with large and medium size banks, and private and public companies designing and implementing non-qualified retirement plans. He has placed over $1 billion of Bank and Corporate Owned Life Insurance and has active policies on over 15,000 employees. Currently he holds memberships in the Richmond and national chapters of the Association of Life Underwriters, the Association of Advanced Life Underwriters, and multiple state banking associations. He is an associate member of the National Bankers Association who recently recognized him with the 2006 Donald H. Alexander Trailblazer award for distinguished service to the minority-owned banking community. He frequently speaks at banking association meetings and has led sessions on split dollar and BOLI at the Federal Reserve’s Insurance Learning Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a registered representative with Securities America, Inc., and an Investment Advisor representative with Securities America Advisors, Inc.

Doug is a Richmond native, educated at St. Christopher’s School, Hampden-Sydney College and the Law School of the University of Virginia. He has been a lawyer with Sands Anderson Marks & Miller for 35 years and concentrates in commercial mortgage finance, commercial real estate, contract law and civil litigation, with an emphasis on defending lawyers and real estate professionals. In 1996 Doug served as President of The Virginia Bar Association and has been a member of the Boyd-Graves Conference for twelve years. He is a Fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation and the American Bar Foundation and has been named to Who’s Who in American Law, Best Lawyers in America, Virginia’s Legal Elite and Virginia Super Lawyers.

Mike Smith grew up on a farm in New Kent, Virginia, just east of Richmond. He attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA and graduated in 2000 with a B.S. in Computer Science. During his senior year at W&M, he was discipled by Percy Strickland, who later went on to found Church Hill Activities & Tutoring. Mike moved to Richmond in 2000 and programmed pharmaceutical software for 6 years. For the past 2 years, he has worked for Media General in their Interactive Media department, focusing on website development and search functionality. Mike has been involved with Church Hill Activites & Tutoring since 2004, and has served on the board since 2005. Mike met Ashley Lee while tutoring at CHAT in 2005, and they later went on to marry in 2006. He has attended Peace Hill Christian Fellowship in Charles City County, VA for the past 10 years and played guitar on their worship team. He has recenlty been attending East End Fellowship since it began in February 2008. Among other things, Mike enjoys travelling, playing music, serving others, working on his backyard vegetable garden, spending time with family and friends, and squeezing in a game of disk golf every now and then.

Carolyn grew up in New York, but moved to Virginia to attend the University of Richmond, where she was very involved in student ministry with an interdenominational Christian campus ministry, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. After graduating in 2001, she interned for a summer with the Richmond School of Urban Ministry through Charity Mission International Church and then worked with Charity Family Life, a non-profit organization in the city of Richmond, for a year. There she assisted with grant-writing, program planning and administration, as well as worked directly with the students in the tutoring and mentoring program.