Angela Melvin
Founder and CEO

Angela Melvin is the Founder of Valerie's House, the only organization in Southwest and Northwest Florida with its sole mission to help children grieve. 

A fourth-generation native of Southwest Florida, Angela's mother, Valerie, died in a car accident in 1987 in Fort Myers when Angela was ten years old. Angela said, "With a place like Valerie's House, I would have connected with children like me, and it could have made all the difference in my life."  

With locations in Fort Myers, Naples, Punta Gorda, and Pensacola, Valerie's House provides children who have lost a loved one a place where they can grieve together, connect with others their own age and learn that loss doesn't have to limit their dreams. Valerie's House opened with 20 children in 2016 and has grown to help more than 5,000 children and their caregivers find strength and resilience through their loss.

A University of Florida graduate, Angela spent ten years working as a TV reporter around the country and then on to become a Communications Director for a United States Congressman on Capitol Hill before returning to her hometown in 2013 and shortly thereafter starting Valerie's House.

Angela was honored as a Women of Distinction in 2021, News-Press "Hero of the Year" finalist in 2017, a "Person of the Year" finalist in 2016, and a Gulfshore Business "40 under 40" in 2015. Valerie's House was named Rising Non-Profit of the Year by the Cape Coral Community Foundation in 2017 and was a finalist for the Horizon Council Non-Profit of the Year Award in 2017.

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Amy Strom, LCSW-QS, M.S.S.A., M.ed.
Vice President of Partnerships and Operations

Amy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who oversees the Valerie’s House counseling team. Amy started at Valerie's House as a volunteer group facilitator and quickly fell in love with the mission, joining the team full-time in 2018. Amy has helped expand the clinical counseling intern program in partnership with Florida Gulf Coast University and uses her expertise in the grief field to be a voice in the community.

Amy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker Qualified Supervisor and a Certified School Social Work Specialist. She has worked in the social work field for more than twenty years providing services in schools, clinical mental health centers, and private practice.The focus of her practice has been children, adolescents, and their families.

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Amy enjoys spending time with her husband and her two sons at the beach, traveling, or watching sporting events.

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Melody Madigan, M.ed.
Grief Support Training and Support Coordinator

Melody Madigan is no stranger to helping the youth of Southwest Florida. She served students as a School Counselor in the Lee County School District for nearly 40 years. After retiring from education, Melody began volunteering at Valerie's House shortly after the program opened in 2016 as a Group Support Facilitator. Realizing that Valerie's House is the perfect place to satisfy her passion for helping youth, she readily accepted a position to help children. She participates in intake interviews, replies to initial family contacts, assists in group activity planning, and leads children's support groups.

Melody has a Master's Degree in School Counseling from the University of Akron, a Master's degree in Instructional Technology from the University of South Florida, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Kent State University. Melody's years as a school counselor have shown her that there is a tremendous need for grief support, and she is thrilled to be a part of Valerie's House.

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Kathy Burg
Program Operations Manager

Kathy Burg comes to us with years of experience in nonprofit, communications, project management, and volunteerism. After the sudden loss of her husband and father of her three children in 2020, Kathy and her family found support and community at Valerie’s House. This grew her heart for the mission and ultimately drew her to join the Valerie’s House team.

As Program Operations Manager, Kathy oversees all the moving pieces of the program department, including group night coordination, curriculum, and program partnerships. Kathy is an integral part of the care we give families at Valerie’s House, making sure all families are connected and their needs are met.

Kathy loves spending time with her three children, two of whom are now young adults, and is very involved with her local church.

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Justin LaVerdiere
Communications Manager

Justin LaVerdiere, also known as Justin Kase from WINK News, is excited to join the Valerie's House team.

Originally from Maine, Justin grew up in Naples, attending the Community School of Naples, Gulfview Middle School, and Naples High before graduating from St. John Neumann High School. He earned his associate degree from FSW and a degree in Communication Studies from FGCU.

Justin's career spans various industries, including restaurants, retail, TV, and radio. Over the past decade, he's focused on media, starting as an anchor and reporter at WYMT in Kentucky. There, he handled multiple roles, from photographer to producer. After Kentucky, Justin returned to Southwest Florida as an anchor and reporter at WINK News, covering major events like elections and storm coverage, as well as high-profile stories.

Leaving the news industry was a tough decision but the right one for his young family. Now, he is passionate about telling inspiring stories and spending more time with his loved ones. He is thrilled to be part of Valerie's House, sharing stories of triumph and resilience every day.

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Todd Cordisco
Operations Manager

Todd Cordisco brings nearly two decades of experience in non-profit administration, fundraising, communications, and operations in Southwest Florida to the Valerie’s House team.

Before joining Valerie’s House, Todd served as Vice President and Chief Communications Officer (CCO) for SalusCare, the leading community mental health and substance use treatment agency in the region. During his 15-year tenure, he managed development, public relations, the welcome center, facilities & maintenance, and food service. His background also includes roles in development and communications with Lighthouse of Southwest Florida and Bishop Verot High School.

As Operations Manager at Valerie’s House, Todd oversees communications and facilities management across all locations, while also contributing to fundraising, grants, and development initiatives.

Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Todd holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Otterbein University and is pursuing a Master’s in Public Administration at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). He is also a Certified Development Executive (CDE) through the National Association of Nonprofit Organizations & Executives.

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Heather Tharpe Moorhead
Business and Human Resources Manager

Heather and her daughter Hailey are a former Valerie's House family and attended our support groups after the loss of Heather's husband in 2017 for three years.

When it was time for Valerie’s House to hire a Business Manager full-time, Valerie’s House didn’t have to look to far to find the passion, experience, and dedication needed for the position.

Heather graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2008 with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management. Before coming to Valerie's House, she handled many aspects of accounting for a local business and accounting firm for thirteen years and was a human resources manager for a medical billing company. In addition to her accounting experience, she has both her PHR (Professional in Human Resources) and SHRM-CP (Society for Human Resource Management – Certified Professional) certifications.

When she is not working, she likes to spend her time traveling and with family, and attending Miami Dolphins football games, as she is a proud season ticket holder.

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Bobbie Santiago, BSW
Group and Volunteer Manager

Bobbie Santiago comes from a background of working with children and families in multiple capacities. After acquiring her Bachelor of Social Work from FGCU in 2017, she jumped right into the Social Work field as an intern. She was then hired as a Case Manager, where she worked with foster kids who were up for adoption for four years. Since then, Bobbie has been a mentor, children’s counselor, program director, volunteer sports coach, and foster parent of 5 children. Bobbie lost her grandmother, cousin, and close friend all within a month and quickly learned how important it is to have support during the grieving process.

Bobbie oversees all aspects of group nights, including volunteers and interns. She also manages the Val’s PALs Mentor Program.

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Molly Buck, MSW
School Group Coordinator

Born and raised in the Southwest Florida area, Molly has a passion for the mission of Valerie's House. When she was ten years old, her father died from cancer, which impacted her career path as an adult as there was no support in the area at that time.

Molly is a graduate of Saint Mary's College Notre Dame, where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in social work in 2019. While a student in Indiana, she volunteered at an organization like Valerie's House, which furthered her passion for grief support. She also earned her Master's Degree in social work from the University of South Florida in 2021.

As the School Group Coordinator, Molly is responsible for coordinating and planning the grief support groups in Lee County schools. Additionally, she assists families with the enrollment process and serves as a Group Buddy at the Fort Myers location. With Molly's personal grief experience, she is grateful and passionate about joining the Valerie's House team.

In her free time, Molly enjoys spending time with her family, friends, and dog named Clover. She also likes to read, travel, watch movies, and watch TV.

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Stori McDougall
Group Night Activities Coordinator

Stori was born and raised in Southwest Florida and has always had a passion for mental health advocacy.

In 2015, her mother died unexpectedly, and Stori found her way to Valerie’s House as a teen participant in 2016. Throughout her years at Valerie’s House, she gained the skills necessary to heal her grief and grew to want to give back and help other grieving teens and families.

She volunteered at Valerie’s House for several years until she went off to college. Stori graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and is now the Group Night Activities Coordinator at Valerie’s House in Fort Myers.

Her long-term goals are to continue her education and eventually work as a clinical psychologist, helping children and adolescents work through mental health, trauma, and grief. 

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Laree Lowe
Group Night Coordinator

Laree Lowe is the Group Night Coordinator at Valerie’s House. She was born and raised in Colorado but finished high school in Florida. Her undergraduate degree in Philosophy was earned at Florida Gulf Coast University in 2023. Her original goal was to continue into law, but after the death of her father in 2021, plans changed, and Laree found her way to Valerie’s House as a volunteer. She is a graduate student at Carlow University, working toward an MSW and MBA. Her long-term goals are to continue working in a healing and helping career and eventually work in public advocacy or oversee a non-profit.

Laree was raised by a single mother who worked hard to raise her three daughters; she always encouraged individuality and kindness. These traits are present in Laree every day, as she connects well with the kids, is always helpful, and wears the best earrings! In her free time, she likes to kayak, paint, read, and hang out with her cat, Alfred.

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Jill Taylor, MSW
Family Support Specialist

Jill is the Valerie’s House Family Support Specialist and works with families to schedule and conducts enrollments for new families. Jill understands what it’s like to make that first call to Valerie’s House because she and her daughter Sam attended Valerie’s House after the death of her husband in 2018.

Jill earned her Bachelor’s in Social Work from Ball State University and her Master’s in Social Work from Indiana University. Jill worked with children and families in various schools and agencies as a social worker for 20 years until she had her daughter in 2008.

Jill currently serves as a volunteer at Three Oaks Elementary, working in the classroom, and is a Guardian Ad Litem volunteer. She is also a Girl Scout troop leader and plays an active role in her church.

To learn more about Jill and her family’s experience in the Valerie’s House program, click here.

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Maria Miravalle
Grief Support Coordinator

Maria Miravalle joins the team as our Grief Support Coordinator after several years of assisting individual grievers and facilitating support groups for spouse loss, infant loss, overdose loss, and suicide loss at a grief support center in Cleveland, Ohio.

As a certified spiritual director, she specializes in attending particularly to the spiritual crisis some experience in the aftermath of loss. Having previously ministered for the last two decades in hospices, prisons, hospitals, and grief centers, Maria is grateful to be helping children and youth at Valerie's House.

Firmly believing that God works through love, relationships, and beauty to cultivate the process of healing and in the power of interior exploration through artistic expression, Maria says she feels aligned with the vision of Valerie's House and is grateful to share its mission.

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Shaun Kastelic, RPT-S, NCC, M.A.
Grief Therapist

Shaun Kastelic has spent more than 20 years working with children who have undergone grief and trauma.

Before coming to Valerie’s House in 2022, Shaun worked for the United States Department of Defense, helping children of fallen soldiers stationed in Hawaii, and then in Georgia.

Shaun uses a variety of modalities to help Valerie’s House children during individual grief counseling sessions, including sand tray therapy, EMDR, art and music therapy, sports therapy, and lego therapy. He has experience helping multicultural families, including blended families and children who have been lovingly adopted. He also helps children with autism, those who struggle with a strong desire for gaming and video time, those with educational/learning disabilities, and with college and career planning needs.

He also likes to help the children’s caregivers with their situations.

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Susan Rizzato, MSW, LCSW
Grief Therapist

Susan is a grief counselor at Valerie’s House, and she splits her time between our Fort Myers and Naples locations. After receiving her Master of Social Work degree from Loyola University of Chicago, she has worked at academic medical centers in Chicagoland for the last thirty years. She specialized in teaching roles within various areas of trauma, oncology, maternal/child health, neonatal intensive care, and perinatal loss, and she also worked for an Illinois fertility practice as a behavioral health specialist.

Grief and loss are always at the core of her work, and this has been an area, professionally and personally, that carries a special dedication, place, and passion in Susan’s heart. With the goal of living in Southwest Florida, following many years of family travel here, Susan has made this move from the Midwest to join Valerie’s House. She is most humbled, honored, and excited to be a part of this wonderful organization and team whose values align with her own.

At Valerie’s House, Susan facilitates our grief support groups, meets with children, young adults, and caregivers one-on-one to provide counseling support, and also assists with family enrollments.  

In her free time, Susan enjoys being outdoors in the beautiful tropical weather, attending and supporting live music events, following her favorite college sports teams & athletes, and traveling to share time with her adult child, her siblings, and dear friends.

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Mary Cross
Collier County Program Manager

Mary is a child life specialist and has served children and families at Valerie's House Naples since 2018. Mary started as a volunteer facilitator in peer support groups and quickly became immersed in Valerie's House. In her role, Mary utilizes her education and passion in an organization whose mission she fully embraces. In addition, Mary has seen firsthand how Valerie's House provides a safe, nurturing, and calm environment for children who are grieving and their families.

Mary received her Master's Degree in child life at Wheelock College and a Bachelor of Science in child development and family-centered care from Plattsburgh State. Mary worked at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston before relocating to Naples. She has served on various boards/organizations and is committed to Valerie's House's families in Collier County.

Mary enjoys her free time with family and friends.

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Tara Zajas
Charlotte County Director

Tara discovered Valerie’s House on a tour of the Fort Myers home in 2021. Having lost her mother as a young adult, Valerie’s House immediately struck a chord. She began volunteering as a facilitator and mentor with teens in Punta Gorda and eventually joined the Advisory Board. After Valerie’s House purchased a home in Charlotte County in 2023, Tara jumped at the opportunity to work directly for Valerie’s House as Director of Charlotte County.

Tara’s professional background includes working for the Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce in sales and marketing, where she has been a strong and connected member of the Charlotte County community. Tara also has worked for various media outlets and has experience fundraising, event planning, and expanding brand awareness.

A native of New Jersey, Tara enjoys paddleboarding, traveling, and almost anything that gets her outdoors.

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Jedi Kmak, MSW
Charlotte County Program Manager, Registered Clinical Social Work Intern

Jedi is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and Barry University's School of Social Work. Since moving from Vermont in 2002, she has volunteered countless hours helping children and teens in Florida.

Jedi learned about Valerie's House and its mission while serving as a Volunteer Child Advocate with the Guardian ad Litem Agency. Having lost her own father at 16, Jedi recalls driving her mother to grief groups for widows and widowers, where she had no choice but to wait outside by herself.

Jedi is passionate about the value of peer support groups and grateful for the opportunity to help provide young people in Charlotte County with a safe place to share their experiences after losing a family member.

In her free time, Jedi enjoys reading, traveling, antique shopping, and just chilling at home with her family.

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Amy Huddleston
Charlotte County Development and Outreach Coordinator

Amy, a proud native of Charlotte County, graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2011. Before joining Valerie’s House, she dedicated her efforts to local nonprofits, focusing on addressing Charlotte County's needs through strategic community initiatives. Amy excels in building positive community relationships and executing impactful programs. She also possesses expertise in philanthropy.

With the recent acquisition of the Punta Gorda home, Amy looks forward to collaborating with the team to expand the mission and vision of Valerie’s House into Charlotte and Sarasota Counties. In her leisure time, Amy enjoys spending quality time with her family, including her beloved pet, Vera, exploring thrift shops, and delving into a good book.

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Tim Buck
Charlotte County Group Night Assistant

Tim has been mentoring students as the Director of Youth Ministries at 1st United Methodist Church in Punta Gorda since 2007. Tim began his partnership with Valerie’s House in the spring of 2019, shortly after several students in his youth group lost a parent. He soon realized there wasn’t an established grief support system in his own community to help them long-term. Tim has been a facilitator at group nights at Valerie’s House Punta Gorda since its inception in August 2019.

Tim enjoys spending time with his family, doing things outdoors, coaching youth sports, and attending local high school sporting events in his free time. He also enjoys watching his favorite Philadelphia professional sports team play on TV. His hobbies include gardening and treasure hunting at garage sales.

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Crista Brandt
Valerie’s House Pensacola, NWFL Director

Crista is the Director of the Pensacola Chapter of Valerie’s House. In 2020, Crista partnered with founder and CEO Angela Melvin to bring peer-to-peer support groups for grieving children to Pensacola. Like our Founder, Crista also lost her mother in 1987. Suzanne O’Keefe died of cancer when Crista was 11 years old.

Crista’s passion is to help children who are in the same place that she was- alone, lost, sad, and angry. This is her reason for launching the Valerie’s House Northwest Florida chapter in Pensacola. She is dedicated to helping children manage the various stages of grief through healthy outlets.

A graduate of the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, Crista spent 25 years in technology and software consulting, sales, and project management fields. Her passion and heart have always been with grieving children like she once was.

Crista spearheaded the launch of Valerie’s House Pensacola in 2021, expanding to a permanent location in 2022.

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Lauren Ewinger

Grants & Communications Coordinator

Lauren Ewinger has been named Grants & Communications Coordinator at Valerie’s House.

In her role, Lauren is responsible for researching, writing and reporting on grants, as well as assisting with overall communications and outreach efforts at Valerie’s House.

Lauren grew up in Burlington, Iowa and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and broadcast production from the University of Nebraska. 

She began her career at Channel 8 in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2019 as a producer, and in 2021 moved to Ft. Myers where she worked as a television news producer for NBC2.  

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Alexis Dehetre

Program and Administrative Assistant

Alexis Dehetre serves as the Program and Administrative Assistant at Valerie's House, where she combines her professional experience with personal grief experience.

Having spent three years as a Group Night Assistant, she brings a unique perspective to her role. She was previously a participant in the program as a grieving child. This firsthand experience allows her to deeply understand the challenges families face in their grief journeys.

In her current position, Alexis works closely with the CEO to ensure the smooth operation of programs that support grieving families.

She is also a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she is double majoring in Criminal Justice and Psychology.

With a heartfelt commitment to the families she serves, Alexis is dedicated to fostering healing and connection, believing in mission no child grieves alone.

Calypso Hodges

Program Coordinator

Calypso Hodges has been named Program Coordinator and will be working from the Valerie’s House in Punta Gorda.

Calypso was born and raised in Miami, FL before moving to Tampa, earning her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida in 2022. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in child and adolescent behavioral health. 

In 2023, after relocating to Southwest Florida and the unexpected passing of her grandfather, Calypso began volunteering and interning at Valerie's House as a peer group facilitator. 

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Jenni Elzweig
Escambia County Program Manager

Starting as a board member and volunteer facilitator in peer support groups, Jenni quickly became immersed in Valerie's House. She is eager to serve her Panhandle community as the Escambia County Program Manager. She's had a passion for helping those who are grieving since she was young, volunteering as a hospice respite provider right out of high school.

Jenni also knows what it feels like to lose a parent, as her father died from a stroke when she was a young adult. She uses this experience to relate to the kids. Teaching and serving are second nature to her, and she is grateful that families have a warm and loving environment at Valerie's House.

Jenni's educational background includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of West Florida. She has served as a fine arts teacher for the Escambia County School District and mentored many students from diverse backgrounds.

She is also a certified yoga teacher, guiding kids, young and old. When she isn't meeting with families or helping with group nights, Jenni can be found hanging out with her husband and two kids, making art, and playing with her pups, Razzy and Rosie.

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