The South Florida Institute on Aging (SoFIA) has announced the appointment of Cresha Reid as interim president and chief executive officer for the non-profit, which works to improve social and economic outcomes and provides community services to empower people as they age.
With more than 10 years of management and leadership experience working in the non-profit sector, Reid previously served as vice president of programs for SoFIA, overseeing nine programs and the more than 500 older adult volunteers who provide valuable services to South Florida’s aging population. In this position, Reid was actively involved in shaping SoFIA’s strategic and operational goals, while assisting SoFIA’s directors as they planned and delivered program objectives.
As interim president and CEO, Reid will oversee SoFIA’s daily operations, while helping to amplify the organization’s vision and strategic direction by developing new community relationships, public policy plans and fundraising initiatives. Reid will also oversee the direction of SoFIA’s core programs which include SoFIA Tech, SoFIA Fellows, SoFIA Care and Senior Corps.
“I am honored to take on this leadership role at SoFIA, where I’ll have new opportunities to positively impact the lives of our volunteers and the older adults we serve,” said Reid. “Having worked in various capacities at SoFIA over the course of several years, I’ve have tremendous insight into our organization, and I’m acutely aware of the direction we need to take to strengthen SoFIA’s mission and expand our compassionate programing in the local community.”
Prior to her role as vice president of programs, Reid spent four years overseeing SoFIA’s Foster Grandparent Program, a Senior Corp program, as the program’s senior director. At the height of the pandemic, she effectively transitioned 143 older adult SoFIA volunteers to virtual teleservice volunteering and established the popular “Reading with Grandma” YouTube series, allowing underserved students and mentor grandparents the ability to benefit from their relationships through virtual connections. Through her legislative advocacy, Reid worked to successfully raise Senior Corp’s volunteer stipend to $3 an hour, secure temporary allowance for low-income older adults that were not able to serve during the pandemic and increase the Foster Grand Parent Program’s national 2020 budget by $7.9 million.
“The pandemic really brought to light the many social and economic discrepancies older adults from all walks of life are facing,” she noted. “SoFIA offers an incredible range of invaluable services to the community that are still underutilized. We are working hard to change that.”
Always dedicated to supporting the underserved, Reid worked as a Lead(supervisor) Early Head Start Family Advocate at the Early Learning Coalition in Miami earlier in her career where she supported families through the Head Start program and trained staff to help support children’s positive development and wellbeing. Before moving to South Florida, Reid was a Foster Grandparent Program Supervisor at Washtenaw County Office of Community and Economic Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she advocated to provide sustainable housing to more than 50,000 older adults and organized community programs to support their needs.
Active in the community, Reid is a southeast regional alternate representative for the AmeriCorps Seniors Professional Network (ASPN); the former planning committee chair for the National Senior Corps Association (NSCA); Children’s Services Council Broward AWARE committee, Broward Reads: Campaign for Grade-Level Reading committee and the Broward Early Childhood Education committee.
A resident of Miami, Reid received a bachelor’s degree from Florida Atlantic University.