Board of Directors

Sister Rose Wangui, VHM - Founder

Sister Rose, VHM was born and raised in the impoverished district of Lare, Kenya. She joined the Sisters of Visitation of Holy Mary and came to the United States from Kenya in 1994 to join the community at the Georgetown Visitation Monastery in Washington DC. She began her quest for donations for her home village of Lare during the drought of the late 1990's. In 2001, she and three other local Kenyans founded Mercy Project Lare and registered the organization as a 'self-help' organization under the Kenyan Ministry of Social Services which is equivalent to a US non-profit organization. Her vision is that one day, Mercy Center would become a center for community development, organization and empowerment so that the people of Lare can emerge from the burden of poverty and disease and become self-reliant.

Mercy Center Foundation, USA

Kathy Troxell - President

Kathy Troxell is Co-Founder, President and Financial Advisor for Turning Point Financial in Frederick, MD. Turning Point is a registered investment advisory firm with a core commitment to serving wealth management clients, and with an additional focus on human dignity and working as “an engine for good” in the world. In addition to managing her practice full time, she is married to Danny, a career DC Fire Captain. She's a mother of 4 adult children and a “Mimi” to 5 little ones. She is on the leadership team of Encounter DC Ministries, a board member of the Mercy Center Foundation, USA, and is involved in numerous activities that focus on the materially and/or spiritually vulnerable people – both locally and across the globe.

Laurent Meister - Treasurer

Laurent Meister

Deborah Spagnoli - General Counsel and Secretary

Deborah Spagnoli 

Flo Dayberry - Community Partnerships Development.

Flora Dayberry is a mom to two teenaged boys and has had decades of experience in manifold relationships with ecclesial and civic NGO’s:  including advocacy agencies and ministries related to Children, Youth, Young Adults and Vulnerable persons, Formation, Education, Abuse and Human Trafficking Interventions. Flora is excited to share a few ideas in rallying support to promote the welfare of Sr. Rose’s beloved “Mercy Girls” and to see flourish their innovative, sustainable, catholic community initiative in Kenya. She presently lives in Frederick, Maryland.

Adrianne V. Doherty - Special Projects

Adrianne has an extensive background in international development and democracy programs. Serving the Committee for Free Trade Unionism, AFL-CIO for two years on assisting Cuban dissidents and exiled trade union leaders..  She also has eighteen years at the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, AFL-CIO, where her work centered on program management and development and strategy - supporting, developing and implementing programs with trade unions and NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Asia. Her work includes campaigns for women and labor rights and programs to support worker rights, democratic elections and transitions, international labor standards, human rights, inter-ethnic cooperation and dialogue, international exchange programs and women’s leadership. She is currently working to build and support girls secondary education in rural Kenya with the Mercy Project.  She serves as Alternate Chair of Zambia Orphans Aid (ZOA US) where she helps to support programs for girls education and job skills training.  Ms. Doherty has worked in Latin America for Freedom House and the Center for Free Cuba.  Ms. Doherty holds a B.A. from George Mason University and an M.A. from the American University in Washington, D.C.