Posted by Dora Dye on Sep 25, 2021
Jessica P. Hansen joined our Club on April 14, 2020. She has worked in international social justice and humanitarian aid for over 20 years for organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Rescue Committee, Kiva, and others, covering anti-human trafficking, refugee protection and resettlement, as well as innovation in and access to education and finance. Jessica is now CEO and Executive Director of the international medical nonprofit, Alliance for Smiles, as well as a Senior Strategist for the Impact Travel Alliance and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the West African Volunteer Organization.
 
Jessica's family consists of her parents and her sister named Apple. Her father went from a farm in small-town Oklahoma to fight in the Vietnam War, where he met Jessica's mother, a waitress from Bangkok, Thailand. Apple is a skilled pachyderm-keeper who has worked with elephants, rhinos, and more.
 
Jessica hosts a podcast called The HumanKind Project and is an avid writer and reader. She is also a reluctant, but experienced, public speaker. She helps to lead a Burning Man camp called Mystopia. Jessica travels as widely and sustainably as she can and has two sweet kittens named Maya Angelou and Ruthie Bader Ginsburg.

Years ago, Jessica was asked to speak at a number of Rotary Clubs about innovations in international development. A man in the Berkeley Rotary Club connected her to Anita Stangl, who invited Jessica over for a glass of wine and told Jessica about a nonprofit she ran - Alliance for Smiles. The next thing Jessica knew was that she was (happily) roped into volunteering for the Alliance for Smiles gala that year. Anita brought Jessica to a few meetings at our Club, and Jessica was deeply impressed by the caliber of the people and the community service (both domestic and international) of the Rotary Club of San Francisco.
 
 
Editor's Note: In this column, we invite a new member in our Club to share with us. Please join me in welcoming this new member the next time you see her in person at any of our events.