Welcoming Sonia Quiñónez as Northern Virginia Program Director

I’m excited to announce that Sonia Quiñónez will join the Meyer Foundation as the Northern Virginia program director, effective June 18. Sonia’s appointment rounds out our team of regional program directors, with Nadine Duplessy Kearns as District of Columbia program director and Julian Haynes as Maryland program director.

Like Nadine and Julian in their respective geographic areas, Sonia will work to develop and manage a grant portfolio within the Foundation’s goals in housing, education, employment, and asset building, while she identifies opportunities to expand the Foundation’s advocacy, capacity-building, convening, and collective action work in Northern Virginia.

Following a broad search that brought in a pool of talented candidates, Sonia’s leadership, experience, and passion for advocating for systems work to address challenges facing Northern Virginia communities made her the top candidate. For nearly three decades, Sonia has worked in community-based nonprofit organizations in the areas of social justice, family sustainability, and youth development. From 2010 to 2018, she served as executive director at SCAN of Northern Virginia, a nonprofit organization that works to promote the well-being of children, improve parent-child relations, and prevent child abuse and neglect. In addition to her role at SCAN, Sonia has also held community leadership roles on the Nonprofit NOVA Steering Committee, the Alexandria Council of Human Services Organizations, the Arlington PEACE Project Leadership Roundtable, and the Alexandria/Arlington Smart Beginnings School Readiness Coalition. Sonia has served on the Northern Virginia Child Fatality Review Team, and is a member of Leadership Arlington (Class of 2002) and Leadership Alexandria (Class of 2010).

Sonia earned her master’s in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University. She resides in Arlington, Virginia with her husband, where they raised two children.

Sonia is a passionate advocate for work that addresses deeply-entrenched systems that perpetuate multi-generational inequities. Her expertise in cultivating collaborative relationships with nonprofit and public-sector leaders in Northern Virginia, and her experience designing, implementing, and evaluating community solutions in partnership with the communities most effected by those solutions make her an important addition to the Meyer program team. We’re thrilled to begin working with Sonia. Please join us in welcoming her to the Meyer community.

Thank you to all our grantee partners for their patience during a time of growth!