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Robin Sohnen
Executive Director, Founder
Before starting Each One Reach One (EORO) in 1998, Robin was a theater artist, an event producer and a marketing specialist. In 1987 she founded and directed Centre 4 Events, a Los Angeles-based group that specialized in designing, producing and marketing live theater as a unique and effective vehicle for companies to communicate their message to employees and clients alike. As the company's Director she produced over 50 theater-based programs designed to improve internal relations, boost employee morale, support recruitment efforts, and enhance company productivity for organizations such as the Unocal Corporation, Merrill Lynch Corporation, First Interstate Bank, Coca Cola, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau, SNK Home Entertainment Inc., Reebok, Sega, Mindscape, Electronic Arts, and the Missing Children's Foundation.
After moving to the Bay Area in 1991, Robin worked as a freelance producer, planning and staging public events ranging in size from the City of Los Angeles Marathon to the Richmond Neighborhood Community Festival, from the United Nation's 50th Anniversary dance and music concert in San Francisco's Union Square, to the first Alzheimer's Foundation Walk-a-thon in Los Angeles. Since 1986 Robin has been a mentor to young people through Soka Gakkai International, an organization dedicated to the development of peace, culture and education. In 1998 Robin decided to start a non-profit organization to address the escalating rate of incarcerating youth, especially youth of color by exploring theater-based strategies that could effectively break the cycle of violence and divert youth from the adult prison system. Robin is a member of the Skyline College Administration of Justice Advisory Committee and received the 1999 National Council on Crime Delinquency New American Community Award for EORO's creative efforts to reduce crime. She is Commissioner for the Commission on Status of Women of San Mateo County.
Harold Atkins
Program Manager-KIS Program Facilitator
Keeping It Safe Program Facilitator served 3.5 years of a 6-year sentence in a state prison, and is an adult child of incarcerated parents. His father served 31 years on a life “without the possibility of parole” sentence and died in prison.
Harold comes to EORO with over 10 years of working with at-risk youth in a variety of programs. Harold has served as a youth program manager for the AIDS Resources Information and Services (ARIS), as a Homeless case manager for the Emergency Housing Consortium, and served as the health education coordinator at the AIDS Community Research Consortium (ACRC) in Santa Clara County. He also served as the Director of the Community Health Outreach Program at Free At Last, a substance abuse treatment program in East Palo Alto.
Harold has a strong history of working collaborative with a variety of organizations including; The City of San Jose’s Gang intervention Program (STAND), Clean Slate Tattoo removal program, De Anza College Human Sexuality Department, L.I.F.E. Youth Mentoring Program, as well as the Bill Wilson Drop-in Center in San Jose CA.
As a former client of the Centerforce HIV Peer Education Program while incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, Harold was the first non- infected HIV Peer Educator for the Centerforce Peer Education Program. Harold has sat on the Board of Directors of Centerforce for the past 10 years.
With all that Harold has contributed to the community, his pride and joy is coaching youth football in the International Pop Warner Little Scholar’s football league. Harold was the Head Coach for the Bay Cities Bulldogs Pop Warner football team in San Mateo California for seven years (2001-2007) and from 2008 to the present, serves as the Head Coach of the Redwood City 49ers Pop Warner Football team. Harold is also the proud father of 4 wonderful sons.
Shiloh Kaho
Program Coordinator
Shiloh Kaho, Program Coordinator earned her Bachelor's of Arts degree from Notre Dame de Namur University where she graduate with honors - Cum Laude. Currently, she is working on completing her Master's degree in Education.
Prior to joining Each One Reach One, she worked at the San Mateo County Public Health Department where she held several positions including interim Program Coordinator where she wrote program policy, and procedure, developed curriculum, coordinated workshops and facilitated trainings. She has worked for the Carlson Marketing Group as an Event Coordinator, and as a Travel Coordinator for American Airlines, Travelocity and Preview Travel.
Shiloh joined AmeriCorps*NCCC at its inception and has the distinguished honor of serving in the first graduating class. While in AmeriCorps, she worked as a bilingual teaching assistant, within an underserved elementary school in Imperial Beach, CA, a Certified Adult Literacy Tutor with the San Diego Library, and a Youth Advocate for at risk youth in collaboration with the El Cajon Police Department. She continues to volunteer with AmeriCorps as an Alumni member.
Shiloh has served as a teaching assistant at Pacific Primary School and has taught specialized Art and Environmental Science lessons as a volunteer teacher at the Meadows Livingston School in San Francisco. Shiloh spent several years traveling throughout The Netherlands, Costa Rica and the America's studying Art and Art History. She won the Jeffrey Mattison Memorial Scholarship for her original artwork "Africa Dances" and continues to dabble in painting, drawing and creative writing in her spare time. Shiloh has a 12-year-old son, who keeps her busy and her sense of humor active.
Rachel Wiesenborn
Study Hall Manager ~ Youth Service Center, San Mateo
Rachel Wiesenborn is a Para educator for the San Mateo County Office of Education. A life-long resident of the county, she runs the GED program at San Mateo’s Youth Services Center. She also supervises Independent Studies at the facility, serving a wide range of student needs- from finishing high school diplomas to taking on-line college courses. When she isn’t traveling, Rachel continues to pursue her own educational goals.
Laurel Freeman
Laurel Freeman, Healthy Choices/Teen Pregnancy Instructor
Laurel is a consultant and activist on teen issues who is committed to improving the lives of teens in the juvenile justice system. In 1997, while still in college, she began working for The SAGE Project, an internationally recognized human rights organization that fights the commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution of youth. As a result of her work fighting exploitation, she conducted her own original research for a senior thesis entitled Girl Prostitutes in the San Francisco Juvenile Justice System, which was later used by local and international agencies to address issues of exploited youth in the criminal justice system. She graduated from Mills College with honors and obtained a BA degree in Anthropology and Sociology.
Since leaving SAGE after 12 years of involvement with the organization as a counselor, program director, and administrator of a safe house for girls,Laurel has remained dedicated to working with system involved youth, with a specific focus on preventing exploitation, domestic violence, and teen pregnancy. She uses her own experiences as a troubled teenager to provide crisis counseling and Life Skills workshops for teens that address issues such as healthy relationships, STDs and birth control, goal setting, and sexual assault, exploitation, and pregnancy prevention. Laurel has a real world; real talk style of teaching that engages teens in the process of thinking for themselves and making healthier choices as they move toward adulthood.
Dave Garrett
Artistic Director ~ Lead Playwriting
Dave Garrett, Instructor Holding an MFA in Acting from UC Davis, Dave Garrett he has worked as a mentor with Each One Reach One for the past five years. He took on the role of Lead Instructor for the first time in November of 2004. Dave is active in the local theatre community as a playwright and actor. Two of his short plays, "A Pocket Full of Memories" and "I Left My Heart on the 38 Geary", have been produced as part of PlayGround’s Emerging Playwrights Festival (Best of PlayGround). His full-length play, "Never Far From the Tree", was produced at the Exit Theatre in San Francisco. Dave has acted with professional and semi-professional theatre companies in Northern California for the past 13 years. He served on the Board of the Playwright’s Center of San Francisco for two years and was the Artistic Director for Pass the Hat Presents.
Victoria Shaskan
Playwriting Instructor
Victoria Shaskan is a professional theatre artist committed to using theater as a tool for social change. Her work encompasses directing, playwriting, dramaturgy and youth arts instruction. Victoria has a Masters in Theatre Studies, with a focus on African Theatre and Theatre for Development from Leeds University, UK. She has worked nationally and internationally developing and delivering theatrical programs that foster social change, including engaging underserved youth from schools, prisons and the local community in the theatrical process. Victoria has a particular passion for developing new and innovative programs that empower and inspire young people to reach their potential as leaders in their communities.
Daniel Judah Sklar
Playwriting Instructor
Daniel Judah Sklar was born in Los Angeles, California, and attended that city's public schools and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He moved to New York in 1964 to work for the Office of Economic Opportunity (the "poverty program"), while studying acting and directing at night. An incident in East Harlem inspired him to write his first play, which in turn led him to playwriting classes at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and at HB Studio. At the same time, he helped to form Streetlights, the improvisational theatre group, and began reading the plays of Lorca, O'Casey, and Brecht.
Sklar has taught traditional drama for more than twenty years. He spent several years as an artist-in-residence in various elementary, junior high, and high schools in Georgia. His work there gave him an opportunity to create a children's theater in Macon. Sklar's Macon students wrote and produced "The Mall," which included three related dramas, six original songs, and a "Greek chorus." These experiences, together with his subsequent work with T&W and the 52nd Street Project in New York City, led him to develop specific techniques for teaching children to write and perform their own plays.
In 1991, Sklar published Playmaking. The book, a fictionalized account of a residency at "P.S. 52" in the South Bronx, combines a how-to guide to Sklar's techniques with an engaging narrative. Playmaking won the American Alliance for Theater & Education's Distinguished Book Award in 1992, and has been used by teachers nationwide.
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