Rooted in compassion. Grounded in community.

The name Muditā, meaning sympathetic joy, is not incidental. Every program we design, every partnership we form, and every decision our board makes is filtered through the four immeasurable qualities of the heart that the Buddhist tradition calls the brahmaviharas. These are not abstractions. They are operational commitments.

Ronald Leuenberger and William Hall are kalyāṇa-mittas, noble friends in the truest sense of the Pali term. Bound by shared practice, shared values, and a shared conviction that the dharma is most alive when it moves through the world as service, they founded the Muditā Foundation to make that conviction institutional.

Spiritual Guidance, Cleveland Buddhist Vihara

Ven. Bhante Pemaratana

Ven. Bhante Buddhadaththa

Ven. Bhante Lakkana

Our founders are active devotees and lay practitioners of the Cleveland Buddhist Vihara, where they sit, study, and serve under the compassionate guidance of the resident monastics. The Vihara is not merely a background affiliation. It is the living wellspring of the Foundation's ethical orientation and its animating spirit.

The Foundation is guided by a lean, purpose-driven leadership team whose expertise spans international field operations, civic technology, community social work, and institutional stewardship. Each director holds their role as an expression of service, not position.

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Darrik Mazey

Technology Systems Director

Oversees digital infrastructure, data integrity, and the technology systems that connect our programs across geographies, ensuring platforms serve transparency and accountability.

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Nilantha "Sam" Samarasekera

Director, Sri Lanka Operations

Our trusted envoy on the ground in Sri Lanka. Sam coordinates community liaison, site assessment, and government relations in the Chilaw region.

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Abigail Hall

Director of Organizational Affairs

Abigail Hall is a community-based social worker whose career spans program authorship, service coordination, and community engagement. She oversees governance documentation, board records, and compliance correspondence while applying her background in financial literacy and reporting to keep stewardship transparent and accountable.

Program design & management Community services coordination Community engagement Financial literacy & reporting Governance & compliance

Dr. Sherry Warren

Director of International Social Work

Dr. Sherry Warren grew up in rural Kansas and longed to see the world and meet people with diverse experiences of it. Since attending the University of Kansas, where she studied Latin America for her undergraduate degree, she has worked to make those opportunities happen in her life. Sherry earned her Master of Social Work in clinical mental health and eventually her PhD in Social Work, writing her dissertation on international social work education in the USA. Along the way, she learned first-hand about social welfare in Guatemala and Costa Rica, then Croatia and Ireland. Much of Sherry's work experience is situated in faith communities, where she has worked extensively on issues at the intersection of faith, gender, human sexuality, and justice. She often refers to social work as "secular ministry" and has taught at several social work programs, including the prestigious Mandel School at Case Western Reserve University, where she met William Hall and became interested in the Muditā Foundation's work in Sri Lanka. Dr. Warren is thrilled to join the Muditā Foundation Board and to bring her knowledge of international social work in a globalizing world to those who can benefit from better access to resources and empowered systems of development.

The Foundation's work is carried forward by a growing circle of social work practitioners and graduate students who lend their training, research, and steady care to our programs. Each brings a distinct path into the field, and a shared commitment to serving individuals and communities with dignity.

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Tara Houston

MSW Candidate, CWRU

Tara Houston is a graduate student pursuing her Master of Social Work (MSW) at Case Western Reserve University. Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Tara brings a warm, grounded perspective to her work in the field. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Denver, where she developed a strong foundation in social work principles and practice. Now at CWRU, she continues to deepen her expertise and commitment to making a meaningful impact in the lives of individuals and communities. Tara's journey from the desert Southwest to her graduate studies reflects her dedication to growth, learning, and service.

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Stephanie Smith

MSW Candidate, CWRU

Stephanie Smith is a graduate student pursuing her Master of Social Work (MSW) at Case Western Reserve University. With a keen eye for detail and a drive to create sustainable impact, Stephanie has played an integral role in collecting corporate information and advancing grant procurement efforts — work that helps organizations secure the funding they need to serve their communities. Her ability to navigate the intersection of research, development, and social work practice demonstrates both her analytical strengths and her commitment to the broader mission of the field. At CWRU, Stephanie continues to build on this foundation as she prepares to make her mark as a social work professional.

Francisca StGermain

BSW · Crisis Case Manager

Francisca StGermain was born and raised in Fort Myers, FL. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Social Work in April 2022 from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She currently works as a Case Manager for a mobile response crisis unit team in Fort Myers, FL and conducts her internship at Charlotte Behavioral Health Care in Punta Gorda, FL. Her future plans are to obtain her clinical social worker license, then to build her own residential facility catered to youth under 21 who face behavioral and mental health challenges.

Kelley Conley

Social Worker, Ohio Guidestone

Kelley Conley is a dedicated social work professional at Ohio Guidestone, where she channels her passion for community well-being into a diverse range of impactful programs. Her work spans ESL programming, data collection, and child and family therapies, reflecting a broad commitment to serving individuals and families from all walks of life. Through her work in ESL programming, Kelley helps bridge language barriers and expand access to vital resources for non-native English speakers, while her focus on child and family therapies speaks to her deep investment in the health and resilience of the families she serves. Kelley's data-driven approach ensures that the programs she supports are grounded in evidence and continuously improving to meet the needs of her community.

Beyond our directors, the Foundation's digital work is carried by a small circle of technologists who give their skill freely and consistently. They hold no title they sought and draw no compensation — they show up because the work matters and the people it serves are real. We name them here because commitment this quiet and this steady deserves to be seen.

Our founders and directors make a firm and public commitment: every dollar raised and distributed by the Muditā Foundation reaches its intended community. This is not a marketing statement. It is a structural one, built into our governance, our financial controls, and our personal practice of non-attachment to institutional accumulation.

The Muditā Foundation practices ABCD, Asset-Based Community Development, a methodology that begins not with a deficit assessment but with a genuine inventory of community strengths. We ask what a community already has, skills, relationships, knowledge, land, institutions, before we ever ask what it needs.

This is not a grant-narrative convenience. It is the reason our programs hold. When communities are co-designers and co-owners of their own recovery and resilience, outcomes endure beyond the project cycle.

The Foundation operates across two primary program geographies, each chosen not by strategic mapping but by the pull of real relationships and real need on the ground.