Welcome YBB’s New Interim ED: Arthur Padilla

In April of this past year, YBB’s Executive Director departed. After a challenging year of pandemic, lockdown, and social unrest, YBB’s staff and volunteers felt the impact, and a great deal of change happened. First, the YBB board determined that they would best be served by hiring Interim Executive Director, Janis Avery. Due to unforseen circumstances, Janis has to step down.

While this sounds like too much change, my perspective is that YBB has been blessed. Janis effectively and efficiently began managing the agency and creating a foundation to move the agency forward and put all the processes in place. I simply have to finish what she began. I believe I speak to everyone at YBB when I say that everyone expressed the deepest appreciation for Janis’ wisdom and guidance through a very challenging transition.

YBB is committed to utilizing yoga and meditation as powerful tools to confront mass incarceration. YBB is committed to Transformational Justice, where the only true solutions are deconstructing oppressive systems and recreating new ways of addressing the challenges of being a human being. In the next few weeks, we will actively begin the search for YBB’s next Executive Director, who can work to bring the vision of healing and wellness, resilience and transformation, and systems change to life.

Who Am I? My name is Arthur Padilla. I have been working and breathing the nonprofit world, trauma-informed practices, and dismantling systems of racism and oppression since the beginning of the HIV epidemic. I am a seasoned Interim Executive Director with a  strong track record of supporting organizations through complicated change.

Thank you for everything you do to support YBB and the larger move towards a transformed justice system. We must always remember: Peace is an inside job!

In partnership,
Arthur G. Padilla