For 25 years, Athena Godet-Calogeras taught high school in poverty areas of New York, Chicago, and Cleveland, and co-founded an alternative high school for teens and young adults who had dropped out of Chicago’s public schools. During her years in Chicago she also helped initiate Haversack, a Franciscan review, and for 15 years served as its editor. In Cleveland she worked with the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio as associate director, directing her passion for justice and her educational and organizational skills to promoting health care for all. Before moving to Allegany 13 years ago, Athena served as co-chair of Ohio’s statewide Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs, which won groundbreaking legislation in December of 2003. At present she chairs the Health Care Access Coalition, a grass-roots community organization committed to affordable and quality universal health care and is a co-founder of Enchanted Mountains Village (EMV), a member of the Village-to-Village Network. Athena has also taught GED classes as an Adult Education Instructor for BOCES in Olean, and for the past seven years she has worked as a volunteer educator with the Cattaraugus County Department of Health where she initiated the Veggie Wheels, a project to bring fresh, local vegetables to low-income residents of the county’s government housing. Athena has an M.S. degree in biology from Notre Dame University, Indiana.
