We are so excited to welcome and introduce you to the CHJS Board. The team has extensive experience within the sports-based, youth development, and healing-centered sports arena and brings both direct-service and systems-level knowledge to the CHJS leadership.
Jai Nanda – Jai is the Founder and Executive Director of the Urban Dove, and the Founder of the Urban Dove Team Charter School. He is a founding Board member of Up2Us Sports, a national coalition of Sports Based Youth Development agencies, and previously served on PASE’s Youth Sport AllianceCouncil. Jai has also served as Chairman of the Youth Committee for Community Board 4 and was honored as a Local Hero by Bank of America’s Neighborhood Excellence Initiative. Jai was born and raised in New York City. After completing a public school education, he graduated from the University of Michigan. Before founding Urban Dove, Jai worked as a teacher in the New York City school system both at the high school level and at the City University of New York. He was also a basketball coach for more than 15 years.
Edniesha Curry – Edniesha Curry is currently Head Coach for the FIBA men’s Virgin Islands national team. Curry is the second woman in the world to be a head coach of a FIBA men’s national team. Curry was an assistant coach and player development coach for the NBA Trail Blazers in 2021-22 From 2018-21 curry was with the University of Maine men’s basketball teams where she was an assistant coach She previously served as a player development and assistant coach for the Maine women’s basketball program from 2015-17. Curry is a graduate of the NBA Assistant Coaches’ Program where she gained experience working at the NBA Draft Combine and the NBA G League Showcase. In 2019, Curry served as a guest coach for San Antonio’s summer league team and assisted with Minnesota’s pre-draft workouts. She has also coached and done player development work internationally in Vietnam, China, Israel, and Palestine. As a player, Curry played in the WNBA for Phoenix and Los Angeles along with teams overseas in Greece, Poland, Israel, and Hungary from 2002-09. Curry is a graduate of University of Oregon, where she played the final two seasons of her college career. She is the proud daughter of Edward and Bertha Curry and Jenoah Haywood-Curry and sister to five siblings. Over her long coaching career, Curry has consistently delivered leadership, training, and mentoring to student athletes as well as former professional NBA and WNBA athletes. This experience comes from Curry’s work with FIBA, NCAA, and NBA programs. Curry’s expertise on collaborating business and basketball has afforded opportunities to interface with key marketing and leadership staff within these organizations. Curry is a dedicated advocate for the physical, mental, and social development of sport organizations, people, and athletes all over the world.
David Shapiro – A servant leader of the mentoring movement for more than 20 years, David Shapiro has dedicated his career to working across sectors and driving equity through the power of relationships. He is a frequent speaker around the country on diverse topics ranging from youth mental health, education, workforce development, and civic engagement centering on the power of social capital and relationships as drivers of healthy development, diversity, and equitable support and opportunity.
During his leadership as the head of MENTOR, the organization has partnered with global brands including the NBA, NFL, Nike, Starbucks, LinkedIn, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft to expand the mentoring movement through cause elevation; grown its national footprint to include 24 local Affiliates nationwide providing on the ground expertise; and worked extensively with the Obama Foundation to center mentoring through My Brother’s Keeper. In 2014, MENTOR was selected by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to establish and lead the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC), a comprehensive resource for mentoring tools, programs, and training materials, as well as access to no-cost training and technical assistance for mentoring programs across the country. Some of MENTOR’s other key philanthropic partners include American Student Assistance, Schultz Family Foundation, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, EY, and AT&T.
Shapiro serves as an emeritus board member of the Mass Nonprofit Network and Common Impact and is on the boards of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, America’s Promise Alliance, The Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport, and the national board of Friends of the Children. In 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker appointed him to the board of trustees of Bunker Hill Community College, the largest community college in Massachusetts.
Shapiro and his family reside in Boston. He is a husband, father, mentor, and youth baseball coach.
David Flynn – David serves as the Executive Director of The Center for Healing and Justice through Sport. Throughout his career, he has worked as a coach, program director, grant-maker, entrepreneur, executive, and field-builder within the sport for good movement. Over the past decade, his work has focused on building national and regional sports-based youth development networks and coalitions as a strategy to make youth sports more equitable and impactful. David lives in Chicago with his family; he loves relaxing mornings with coffee, hanging out with friends, and playing basketball.
Megan Bartlett – Megan wants every coach and youth development practitioner (fine, every human) to learn about the brain so that they understand the unique ability that sport has to help kids heal, grow and thrive. Happiest when she’s in a room full of coaches, Megan designs and delivers training experiences, creates toolkits and resources, and provides support to organizations committed to ensuring that all sports experiences are healing experiences. She is part of the faculty for NMSport, speaks regularly on the power of sport for good, and is the author of two books: “A Kids Book About Trauma” and “Redesigning YouthSports-Change the Game.”
Kourtni “Mackenzi” Stewart – Mackenzi serves as the Cultural Literacy Intern for her family’s sports-based youth development organization, the L.E.A.D. Center for Youth, which uses baseball to teach young Black boys how to overcome three curve balls that threaten their success: crime, poverty, and racism. Mackenzi is a senior at Southern University and A&M College where she studies political science and plays on the women’s tennis team. As a sophomore, she earned a spot on the SWAC All-Conference women’s tennis team during the 2021 season while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. In addition to being a stellar student-athlete, she is also the creator of Know Your Truth? an empowerment brand and curriculum founded in 2019 that shines a light on the people, places, ideas, and concepts that have been intentionally left out of the standard curriculum in our public education system.
Oji Eggleston – Oji is the Executive Director of Chicago Survivors. Eggleston brings nearly 20 years of community engagement and violence prevention experience to the board. He is eager to continue his work creating trauma-informed and family-focused programs that address community violence and provide residents with supportive and accessible services. Eggleston received an MBA in marketing from the University of New Orleans and an BA in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana.