Director

Nancy Sondel, a semi-​retired educator, taught as an independent contractor in Santa Cruz County, California public and private schools. Her teaching over the decades encompassed music, creative writing, and bilingual Spanish-​English instruction, for toddlers through teens, plus early twenties.

Nancy also held teaching positions in two U.S. government programs. The first was Project Headstart (when it began in 1965; she was a teen). The second was Upward Bound (in the 1970s, for motivated high school seniors). Years later, she was the recipient of a Packard grant to teach instrumental music in Santa Cruz schools, and she taught in a Cabrillo College music program for kids. Nancy also worked for the educational publisher McGraw Hill on a youth literacy project.

In the 1980s and 90s, Nancy was the founding director of a team-​taught, multi-​arts day camp held at UC-​Santa Cruz, Camp Koinonia, and Waldorf and Montessori Schools. One of these camps was featured in a full-​page article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Nancy also enjoyed teaching English and publishing educational materials while living in Spain and Argentina.

In 2024, she was the guest speaker at a training session for Suicide-​Crisis Hotline volunteers.  Maintaining confidentiality, she relayed what she’d learned from teens and twenty-​somethings who’d shared their mental health struggles with her—Nancy’s former students, plus a caller she’d never met.

”All very gratifying,” Nancy says. “It’s an honor and pleasure to integrate my experiences into developing Project Oasis, to enrich the lives of our youth for now and generations to come.”