Meet the Assembly Co-facilitators
Kristi Laughlin
Kristi has been a community organizer for 25 years in the Bay Area, primarily engaged in programs and policy campaigns to uplift low-wage and immigrant workers. She loves her role as senior campaign director at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), where she can act on her core belief that the economy should serve working people and help all beings and creation to thrive. She currently leads EBASE’s housing justice work and supports low-income tenants to organize for safe and affordable homes to raise their families with dignity.
Kristi has her master’s degree from the Graduate Theological Union and has been an Associate of the Society of the Sacred Heart for over 20 years. She has served on the Associates Leadership Team for the last six years and recently joined the Province’s JPIC Commission. She lives in a small co-housing community in Oakland with her husband and son.
Kristi is excited about this moment in the Society when the Holy Spirit beckons us to find structures and identities that nurture an ever deepening and expanding kinship with each other across borders.
Mary Kay Hunyady, RSCJ
Mary Kay entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1978 and began her educational career teaching religion, working in campus ministry, and directing social justice programs in Omaha, Nebraska, and at Woodlands Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois. Following her particular call to work actively for social justice, Mary Kay was involved with both community and political organizing in the Chicago and San Francisco Bay areas. She taught non-violent trainings and has facilitated a number of group processes since the 1980s, both within the Province and inter-congregationally. Her provincial endeavors continued as she was named by Kathy Conan and later Paula Toner to the Provincial Team, a position that gave Mary Kay keen insight into the work of the Holy Spirit in the province and the shape of the future.
Presently, Mary Kay resides in the Bay Area as a licensed psychologist, working in private practice with both individuals and couples as well as serving as facilitator for congregations and communities. She is also trained in and offers spiritual direction.
For Mary Kay, the moment is now that we choose a future with hope. While the change will not be easy, the invitation is to know one another by listening deeply in order to co-create our new Province.