Our Board of Directors

Mysherrii Lard
Board President

Mysherrii Lard is the founder of Pinnacle Disability Services.  For over 20 years, she has been dedicated to helping people in the community access a range of resources, starting with social security disability income. She has extensive leadership experience in providing health education community enrichment seminars and team building workshops which ensure people with disabilities can build a normal productive life. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she then had the privilege to reside in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Houston, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland. She worked at the Men’s Wearhouse corporate office as the Operations Manager, and as a Grant Analyst at the Maryland Energy Administration, where she provided grants to homeowners who wanted to install solar panels and clean energy stoves in their homes. She worked at Richard Schwartz & Associates as the Director of the Social Security Disability department, where she was able to establish and launch a Social Security Department which eventually generated over $1 million dollars in annual revenue with hardly any overhead.   

She currently lives near Baltimore, Maryland where she purchased her first home with down payment assistance from Wider Path.  She understands the needs of the community and what it is like to dream of owning a home without believing that dream can really come true.  Her passion is educating homebuyers about our available resources and bringing hope and awareness to the communities we serve.  

Bethany Gilpin
Chief Operating Officer, Board Secretary 

Bethany Gilpin comes to Wider Path with a rich background spanning education, healthcare, and community service. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Dartmouth College before pursuing a nursing degree. Bethany’s extensive experience in education, tutoring, and administration underscores her versatile skill set.

Bethany has dedicated over two decades to community service, serving on boards of youth sports and educational organizations, volunteering in churches and the public health sector, and co-founding an epilepsy support group for parents. In addition to her volunteer work, Bethany has played a key role in developing and managing the Wider Path Down Payment Assistance Grant Program, which has significantly improved home ownership accessibility for many. As a pediatric triage nurse, she uses her expertise and compassion to contribute to the well-being of children and their families.

Sangress Xiong
Board Treasurer 

Sangress Xiong is a dedicated operations professional and U.S. Veteran with over four years of experience in the mortgage banking industry. As a Year Up alum, he possesses a unique blend of hands-on technical training and disciplined leadership.

Sangress specializes in business system analytics and mortgage operations, leveraging his expertise in the Microsoft Suite and Scrum methodologies to streamline processes and enhance team productivity. His military background has instilled a strong sense of integrity, teamwork, and a results-driven approach to complex operational challenges.

He is passionate about leveraging data and agile frameworks to drive efficiency and is seeking new opportunities to contribute to a forward-thinking team.

Our Staff

Sarah Hobson
Senior Director of Programming

Sarah Hobson Ph.D. is the founder and president of Community Allies.  Drawing on years of researching her youth ethnodrama programs, she developed Honoring Stories and Integrating Curriculum® to help businesses work together with governments, non-profits, and schools to strengthen local, regional, and national community growth initiatives that create pathways out of homelessness and into affordable housing, quality healthcare, youth development, workforce development, entrepreneurship, small business development, wealth-building, and talent pipelines for all. Honoring Stories and Integrating Curriculum® is a systematic way for educators to design culturally responsive trauma-informed instruction that engages students as regional and national change-makers. Honoring Stories and Integrating Curriculum® helps organizations streamline internal operations, strengthen bridge-building and collaboration within and across departments, maximize learning about processes that foster sustained cultural competence, and yield products, services and instructional designs that align with broader demographics and that contribute to thriving communities.

Shounteé Turner
Fund Developer

Shounteé Turner began her career at Unistar Nuclear, advancing from executive assistant to lead technical writer and analyst where she oversaw a 6,000-page proposal that secured $5 million from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That experience sparked a commitment to writing with impact. So, she set her sights on nonprofit mission-driven fundraising and landed at Total Health Care, a Federally Qualified Health Center where she contributed to securing over $1 million in federal and corporate grants to expand comprehensive health care access to low-income communities. With a 15-year career in raising capital, she has secured millions for initiatives in housing, disability equity and opportunity, race and gender equity, veterans, single mothers, women and girls, homeless adults, youth and families, mentorships, renters, LGBTQ+ communities, faith-based groups and many others that have been historically excluded from resources. In 2019, Turner founded The Write Narrative, LLC, a minority woman-owned consultancy, dedicated to equity-centered fundraising strategy. Her work blends compelling, empathetic and empowering storytelling, fact-based data and creativity, shaped also by her background as a poet and performer, to help nonprofits nationwide access funding that changes the course of lives generationally.

Kya Thames
Marketing & Administrative Specialist

Kya Thames is the Marketing & Administrative Specialist for Wider Path Home Foundation, where she brings both strategic insight and heartfelt commitment to supporting individuals through transformative life changes. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Kya earned her degree in Psychology with a Minor in Education in the Spring of 2023.

With over two years of hands-on experience in social media marketing, Kya combines analytical skill with creative storytelling to elevate the Foundation’s mission and expand its reach. Her work is grounded in a deep understanding of how race and social structures shape individual experiences—a perspective that informs her approach to inclusive and impactful marketing.

Since joining Wider Path Home Foundation, Kya has been instrumental in driving engagement and building meaningful connections with the communities the organization serves. Passionate about helping others achieve their goals, she brings empathy, dedication, and a strong sense of purpose to every initiative she supports.

Board Member Application

We are seeking board members in Baltimore and NYC to help us grow our community impact and our funds. Learn more here and apply below if interested.