Rev. Fr. Haralambos (Bob) Fox

Rev. Fr. Haralambos (Bob) Fox has been the full-time presbyter-Proistamenos of the Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church since 2015. Since 2020 he has been a lead on Homeless outreach for the Santa Barbara Response Network.

Fr. Haralambos was born Robert Fox in Las Vegas, Nevada. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles for his undergraduate studies, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Physics from Occidental College and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Applied Physics from CalTech. He later earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering from USC.

While in college, two events happened that changed his life: he embraced the Orthodox Faith and was chrismated with the name Haralambos; and he met the love of his life – Joann Katsiotis. Fr. Haralambos and Presvytera Joann were married in 1992 at Saint Nicholas Church in Northridge, California. They were both professional folk dancers and teachers with the Aman Folk Ensemble for many years until Fr. Haralambos left the group to pursue employment in engineering, and Joann left to give birth to their first child Marika, in 1997. Throughout their young adult years, they were active in the Northridge parish, singing in the choir, participating in YAL, growing in their faith together, and nurturing a desire to study theology more deeply at the seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts.

In 1999, they followed an employment opportunity in Lowell, Massachusetts that led them closer to their goal of attending seminary. They temporarily settled in New Hampshire where their son Theophanis was born in 2000. Father Bob took seminary classes part-time until the family was able to move on campus and enroll full-time. His greatest desire to serve the Church was realized when he was ordained a Deacon by Metropolitan Anthony of blessed memory in 2004, becoming the first clergyman to be ordained at the Monastery of the Life-Giving Spring in Dunlap, California. He returned to complete his senior year at the seminary and was assigned to the parish of Saint Athanasius in Arlington, Massachusetts to serve with Fr. Nicholas Kastanas.

Following his graduation from the seminary in 2005, Fr. Haralambos was assigned to Saint Nicholas Church in Northridge where he had first attended as a college student. He was ordained to the Priesthood in 2006 by Metropolitan Gerasimos, and continued to serve the parish in Northridge until 2010. That year Fr. Haralambos was assigned as the Proistamenos of Saints Constantine and Helen Church in Lancaster, California. He then served the parish of Saint John the Baptist in Anaheim with Fr. John Kariotakis beginning in September 2013 until July 2015.

Emily Koval

Emily Koval is Program Development Director, City Net. Emily started working at City Net in 2019 inspired to change the system of care for those experiencing homelessness and co-occurring disorders. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Richmond and completed 3 years of graduate level course work in Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Since 2019, she provided direct services to over 350 unduplicated clients and has overseen case management plans for over 760 clients in Santa Barbara County. Her favorite project she has worked on involved providing outreach and engagement, housing, and housing support to the top 50 utilizers of emergency services, 35 of whom were housed within a 1.5 year period. This project taught her how to break down medically vulnerable clients’ perceived barriers to housing and care by providing a human-centered, holistic approach that met clients where they were at in their health journeys. It also taught her the importance of collaboration and inclusivity in the case management process, as many of her clients had severe mental health disorders and substance use disorders that required an additional level of care and creative approach to engagement. Emily’s new role as Program Development Director allows her to operationalize the knowledge gained from field experience and research to create programs based on best practices, policies, and procedures. Her goal is to ensure every person experiencing homelessness has an equitable opportunity to accept and receive services, housing, and care.

jeff shaffer

Jeff graduated from San Jose State University with a bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies. He studied at Western Seminary in Los Gatos before moving to Santa Barbara with his wife Julia in 1992 to pastor at Community Covenant Church in Santa Barbara. He was the interim Senior Pastor there until leaving to join Christian Associates International in 2005. At that point he began working with marginalized people groups in Santa Barbara County. He began his initial work with Friends without Homes at Pershing Park with a meal sharing he started there in 2005. He organized a tutoring program, kids club, and helped create a library for at risk youth while Director at the Village Apartments on the Westside. He helped initiate the first Vulnerability Index in tandem with our Point in Time count in 2011. He served as the coordinator of homeless services county wide from 2012-2019 under the United Way of Northern County. From 2013 to 2022 he was the Director of Initiatives with Santa Barbara ACT – a local non-profit dedicated to working with and for the marginalized in Santa Barbara. Under SB ACT he helps coordinate services for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation under the Human Trafficking Task Force and worked to reduce homelessness and its impacts in the city of Santa Barbara. He has recently taken a new full-time position with Kingdom Causes as their Santa Barbara Catalyst. His work with KCI includes coordination for the County’s Human Trafficking Task Force combating local labor and sexual exploitation and focusing on mentoring Westmont College students to learn to “do justice” in the county of Santa Barbara.

Kayla Petersen

Kayla Petersen is an East Coast transplant to Santa Barbara and Westmont College alumna. Since her time at Westmont, she has participated in several initiatives focused on bringing together members of the community to address complex social problems. She did this first as a staff member with the Westmont Center for Dialogue and Deliberation (WCDD), then with SB ACT coordinating holistic services for folks experiencing homelessness in Santa Barbara. Most recently, Kayla has joined the Kingdom Causes, Inc. (KCI) team to support student and church community engagement initiatives and coordination of the SB County Human Trafficking Task Force.

Kaisa Lindman Marshall

Kaisa is a Sophomore Religious Studies Major at Westmont College. She interns at Kingdom Causes because she wants to be a part of what God is doing in this city to restore people’s dignity and give them hope.

Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero

Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero is "Asian-Latino," and has been a professor of Chicana/o Studies and Asian American Studies at UCLA since 2005. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in Latin American History and his Juris Doctor from U.C. Berkeley. Romero has published more than 30 academic books and articles on issues of race, immigration, history, education, and religion, and received the Latina/o Studies book award from the international Latin American Studies Association. His recent book, “Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (2020),” received the InterVarsity Press Readers’ Choice Award for best academic title. Romero is a former Ford Foundation and U.C. President's Postdoctoral Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Louisville Institute's Sabbatical Grant for Researchers. Robert is also an ordained minister and community organizer.

Karla Can

Karla has been Legal Director of Immigrant Hope Santa Barbara for two years and Accredited Representative for seven years, helping immigrant families understand the complexities of the U.S. immigration system. Being the first generation in her immigrant family to graduate from a 4-year university, God has called her to serve and love her immigrant neighbors in the community and from other parts of the world. Along with advocating for immigrant families, she also trains and equip others in their journey towards accreditation so they too can also serve their immigrant neighbors.

Dr. Sandra Richter

Dr. Sandra Richter, the author of Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Has to Say About the Environment and Why It Matters (IVP 2020), is the Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont College. Richter earned her PhD from Harvard University’s Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department and her MA in Theological Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She has taught at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wesley Biblical Seminary, and Wheaton College, and due to her passion for the “real space and time” of the Bible has spent many years directing historical geography and field archaeology programs in Israel. Dr. Richter is best known in the Church for her work, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP 2008) and a number of DVD curriculums stemming from the project (HarperCollins and Seedbed). She is broadly published on environmental theology and regularly speaks on the topic in academic and popular settings.

Barbara Greenleaf

Barbara Greenleaf is the author of ten books and numerous articles, corporate pieces, websites, blogs, and speeches, one of which won a Best Speech in L.A. award and two of which were published in Vital Speeches of the Day. After graduating from Vassar College, she worked at The New York Times. She was awarded her first book contract at the age of 24 for America Fever: The Story of American Immigration, which won an American Library Association award and of which Kirkus Reviews said, “It currently stands alone.” She was also a contributing editor at Working Mother magazine.

In addition to her writing, Barbara worked both on staff and as a consultant for a number of corporations, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions. Most recently, she served as associate vice chancellor of Antioch University Santa Barbara. When she returned to writing full time, she discovered her funny bone with This Old Body: And 99 Other Reasons to Laugh at Life. Then she combined her aptitude for research with her love of humor in the series of personal essays that became Adventures in ECO Land: My Humorous Take on Going Green.

On the volunteer side, Barbara founded ECO Team, a grassroots organization dedicated to changing people’s behavior to live more sustainably. She also helped save agricultural land in Goleta and mentored students at Santa Barbara High School. When she’s not writing and/or saving the planet, she can be found in her craft studio, where she creates mixed-media art.