Board of Directors

Alice Sammon brings to Ripple Effect Project 20 years of volunteer board participation, event planning and fund raising experience. Alice is a mother of 5 adult children and grandmother of 8; she has been a midwife for 30 years. Upon meeting Dolfine, her heart was touched by Dolfine’s work, determination, creativity, endurance, and complete faith that God will use her acts of kindness to make a change. It was this meeting of kindred spirits that ignited the sparks for the development of Ripple Effect Project.

Joshua Sammon is an accomplished construction project manager with over 20 years’ experience in the construction industry. He brings to the board his expertise in project organization and oversight, including managing contracts, budgets, schedules, and staff.

The belief that “those who can, must”, motivates his work with the board. He has a compassionate understanding of struggles that many people around the world face, just to survive. He is dedicated to making a difference and Ripple Effect Project allows him to use his abilities in support of the orphans of Korando. He also understands that targeted giving maximizes impact. To that end, he fully embraces Ripple Effect Projects philosophy of project based aid to affect long term change.

Bob Van Deventer has been involved with non-profit organizations for over 40 years. His vast experience has had him working in many areas. These areas include an inner city program for disadvantaged children, disaster relief in the USA and food pantry outreach in Maine. In the business world Bob has semi-retired from many years in the international and domestic transportation system.

After meeting Mama Dolfine from Kisumu, Kenya over a year ago he felt that he needed to help her “run” with helping the widows and orphans. Her heart touched him and he now helps in coordinating the Child Sponsorship Program (CSP).

He is residing in Maine with his wife, sons and many grandchildren.

Vin Costello is a proven business leader with executive management and sales/business development experience at both start-up and established companies. He most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer for Numerex Corporation leading the team to close over $50M in new business with a 25% GM improvement and 400% funnel growth.

Prior to joining Numerex, Vin served as an officer of Allot Communications where he was President and VP Sales of the Americas. He grew the region over 600% enabling the creation of unique business units for North and South America. Earlier in his career, Vin held numerous positions of increasing responsibility at Verizon (NYNEX) where he founded and led NYNEX Network Integration and was appointed President and CEO of Bell Atlantic Network Integration (BANI). He grew the start-up business to $325M in annual revenue and 1200 employees in just 4 years. Vin enjoys challenge and was recruited to an optical networking start-up where he served as VP of Sales and assisted Corvis Corporation in achieving an initial public offering which raised over $1B. Vin holds a dual major B.S. in Computer Applications and Information Systems and Business Management from New York University (Magna Cum Laude) and earned an M.S. in Telecommunications Management (Magna Cum Laude) from Polytechnic University.

Vin has been associated with Mama Dolfine and the Ripple Effect Project since 2007 and accepted an Advisory Board position in 2014. He is leading the effort to build a new school building for the orphans at the Korando Education Center and is spearheading the fundraising for the required $250,000. He has served as a Director for the National Emergency Response team, an organization dedicated to “people helping people” in crisis situations. Vin also served as President on the Half Hollow Hills school board where he was elected to two 3-year terms leading 10,000 students across 12 schools with a $100M budget.

Volunteers