Executive Director Transition at Christodora

Dear Friends of Christodora,

With a new year comes change and an exciting new chapter for Christodora. We are pleased to announce that Christodora will usher in its 126th year with a new Executive Director, Salma Choudhury-Muro, who will join the Christodora team on January 23. Salma comes to us with 20 years of experience, including as an executive director, at both local grassroots and large national organizations.  She has dedicated herself to programs that serve youth in organizations that focus on literacy and mental wellness, including Literacy Trust, BELLexcel, Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark, and Boys Town.  She looks forward to bringing her passion for the outdoors to her work, and Christodora looks forward to benefiting from her formidable expertise.  We are eager to discover on what new trail she will lead us!

We wish to offer special thanks to Steven Schall and Mo Coffey from Schall & Russo Planning Works, who guided Christodora's board through this search process to such a wonderful outcome.

As happy as we may be to welcome Salma, it is with equal sadness that we bid farewell to Christodora’s outgoing Executive Director, Judith Rivkin, whose superb twelve-year tenure draws to a close on January 20th. The Board, staff, and the thousands of young people whom she has supported are grateful for her extraordinary dedication to Christodora’s mission to enable New York City youth to learn about the environment and experience the natural world first-hand—in their classrooms, in city parks and at our own wilderness camp, the Manice Education Center. Under her leadership, Christodora expanded and improved programs and partnerships, launched outcomes measures which gained national recognition, and continued to serve thousands of students, even through the challenging pandemic years. Judy and her husband are relocating for a few years to London, England, where they will continue their work to increase access to education, on behalf of Alpha Plus Group and the Gold Standard Charitable Trust; we wish them well!

We hope you will join us in thanking Judy for her leadership and in welcoming Salma to the Christodora family as we embark on this new journey together.
 
Sincerely,
The Christodora Board of Directors