It is with a great amount of sadness that I inform my many friends and
colleagues that I am resigning my position at The San Francisco Foundation. I
have accepted the position of Director of Housing and Small Business
Development with the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and will move to
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The LDRF is a newly created foundation and my
responsibilities will involve helping to rebuild the small business and
affordable housing sectors and prepare them to participate in a significant
way in the massive rebuilding effort underway in the Gulf Region.
The program area I will direct is funded through a major grant to LDRF from the
Bush/Clinton Foundation and has the potential to impact the lives of thousands
of Gulf Coast residents. Making the decision to leave our friends and
colleagues at the Foundation, the faith community, the community activist
movement, and California itself with whom we have worked so long and
diligently to enhance social justice was a difficult one to make. However,
Ora and I have deep southern roots and believe that the opportunity and
challenges that this move presents are ones that we can not allow to pass
without taking advantage of them.
We have been in the SF Bay Area most of our lives and it will take us some
time to complete the move to Louisiana. My last Day at the Foundation will be
Friday, May 19th and my first day in Louisiana will be May 22. Because of the
logistics needed to move a household across the country, Ora and I will be
back to the Bay Area from June 5th through 17th to gather more posessions.
Lastly, once we have settled upon a house in Louisiana, we will return again
to make the major move.
I have truely appreciated the love, support, and encouragement that you have
extended to me and my family over the years and wish I could embrace each of
you individually to say goodbye but I know that that is impossible. My hope
is that you will rejoice with us in the new adventure we are embarking on and
that your love, support, and prayers will continue to sustain us. You will
always occupy a place of foundness and warmth in our hearts.
--
Landon and Ora
