Washington, D.C.

Brandi Kilmer began volunteering as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and family mentor in 2016 while living in Southern California. Since moving to Northern Virginia in 2018, she continues to teach ESL and mentor newcomers while acting as the Director of Community Programs for Their Story is Our Story (TSOS). In her role with TSOS, she manages remote story development and production with community programs teams in 12 United States and eight international locations to foster community involvement in successful refugee integration. Her work in the Washington D.C. area includes advisory roles with the Georgetown University School of Medicine, NoVa Coalition for Refugee Wellness, and the Virginia Community Capacity Initiative. Brandi has also represented TSOS at the 2022 and 2023 Idaho Conference on Refugees, presenting to audiences about integration solutions. She has a BA in English from Brigham Young University, is the mother of five children, and enjoys the great outdoors.

Emily Hendrickson is currently pursing a Masters of Social Work and a Masters of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. She loves working with refugees and hope to use my volunteer experience and education to advocate for better policies to benefit displaced people.

Annie, TSOS Social Media Director, is an artist and mother of three young children. She has a master's degree in Printmaking and has taught art for a number of years as both a private teacher and adjunct professor. Her love of teaching led her to seek out a volunteer opportunity to teach art at a refugee shelter while living in Germany. Annie and her family recently relocated to Northern Virginia, where they hope to stay for a while. Annie harbors a distaste for capital letters and spiders, loves the outdoors, art museums, chocolate, making everything by hand and days without wind (light breezes are ok, though).

Heather lives in VA with her family. She is a Speech Language Pathologist and a Therapeutic Riding Instructor. She served on the prose staff of Segullah, a literary magazine for LDS women, for 12 years, and acted in the capacity of Associate Prose Editor for 3 years. She knows the power of language and the power of storytelling. She is thrilled to be a part of TSOS as Associate Director.

Carla enjoys telling visual and written stories in the digital space, especially personal narratives. She has worked both as a reporter and as a mission-oriented professional, and her primary areas of interest are human rights and the environment. She's currently working full-time as Digital Content Producer at The Wilderness Society and in the past, she has worked for the nonprofits Darfur Women Action Group, Beyond Borders, Promundo, and The Climate Reality Project. Carla is Brazilian and she and her husband welcomed their first child to their family in March.