top of page

Our Center is dedicated to educating about the Holocaust

In 2007, long-time Holocaust educator Jim McGarry founded the Farkas Center in honor of Helen and Joe Farkas. Jim recognized the power of personal testimony and the impact that Helen Farkas made on the students who heard her story.

Meet Our Board

Image-empty-state.png

Lachlan Riley

Student Board Member

Lachlan is a junior at Stuart Hall High School in San Francisco. He has a passion for literature, history, and politics. Lachlan is interested in the Farkas Center due to his love for history and likes how the Farkas Center puts an emphasis on passing down stories and experiences from the Holocaust and WW2.

Image-empty-state.png

Natasha Charas

Student Board Member

Natasha Charas is a Junior at Convent High School in San Francisco, where she serves as the Global Politics Editor for the school newspaper. With a deep passion for advocacy and social justice, she hopes to pursue a career in law to help bridge divides and amplify the voices of underrepresented communities.

Image-empty-state.png

Adrian Schrek

Executive Director

Adrian serves as Director of the Farkas Center after a 10-year stint on its Board of Directors. In addition to her work at the Farkas Center, Adrian indexes Holocaust survivor testimonies for USC’s Shoah Foundation. Prior to this, she was...

Image-empty-state.png

Carole Touye

Treasurer

Carole Touye worked for many years in the Business Office at Mercy High School and served as a key liaison to the Mercy community. She has been engaged in secretarial work in San Francisco Catholic Schools for more than twenty years...

Image-empty-state.png

Anne Grenn Saldinger

Board Member

Anne Grenn Saldinger, Ph.D. is former Executive Director of the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project for which she gathered hundreds of life stories of local survivors. She now works with families to preserve their legacies...

Image-empty-state.png

Ashley Travis

Board Member

Ashley Travis has been a Farkas Center Board member since 2018. She is a yoga and mindfulness instructor with an emphasis on creating a safe container for teen women to heal and grow. Currently taking a pause to explore life...

Image-empty-state.png

Adrian Mison Fulay

Board Member

Adrian Mison Fulay has taught in several schools and programs throughout the Bay Area for over 25 years. Currently the chair of the Religious Studies department at Salesian College Preparatory in Richmond, he teaches in the subject areas of World Religions...

Image-empty-state.png

Lucas Leeds

Student Board Member

Lucas is a graduate of Lick Wilmerding High School in San Francisco who now attends Cornell University. He is a very empathetic person and loves to converse with new and familiar people.. He has a strong passion for architecture and strives to design spaces for the well-being...

Image-empty-state.png

Christopher Chow

Student Board Member

Christopher Chow is a Junior at Stuart Hall High School with a strong passion for social justice. Christopher’s interest in Holocaust education began through an Ethics course, where he learned about the atrocities of the Holocaust. He realized the importance of spreading awareness ...

Image-empty-state.png

Emerson Raab

Student Board Member

Emerson Raab is a junior, class of '27, at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland. She is passionate about Holocaust education, particularly with people that are unaware about the atrocities of the Holocaust. Emerson is on the executive planning committee of Bishop O'Dowd's JSU, and when she heard about the Farkas Center she was eager to join.

Image-empty-state.png

AnneMarie Yellin

Board President

AnneMarie (Feller) Yellin, was born in Chemnitz, Germany, and survived the Holocaust as a "Hidden Child." After Kristallnacht, she went to Brussels, Belgium where she was hidden in a Catholic Convent for the duration of the war...

Image-empty-state.png

Pauline Borghello

Board Member

Sister M. Pauline Borghello, R.S.M. is a native San Franciscan. After high school, she entered the Catholic religious order of the Sisters of Mercy. She has a BA in Education and an MA in Educational Administration/Supervision...

Image-empty-state.png

George Schapiro

Board Member

George Schapiro first drove the eponymous Helen Farkas while serving as a volunteer driver for Jewish Family and Children’s Services in 2010. Over the next few years, he drove Helen to many school speaking engagements...

Image-empty-state.png

Stacy Schwartz

Board Member

Stacy is a native Kansan and a Ph.D. candidate in Visual Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research explores the shifting role of cultural trauma in representations of contemporary American identities, particularly at the intersection of...

Image-empty-state.png

Sydney Klaiman

Board Member

Sydney discovered the Farkas Center when she was a student at Mercy High School in San Francisco and was the Farkas Center’s first student board member. This afforded her the opportunity to meet many survivors, including Helen Farkas.

Image-empty-state.png

Ryker Fringer

Student Board Member

Ryker Fringer is a Junior at Stuart Hall High School. He is passionate about ethics. This interest in ethics began in school and has been amplified in his exploration on this topic on his own. He has learned about the Holocaust and genocide related studies with the Manovill Seminar...

Image-empty-state.png

Michael Campos

Board Member

Michael Sepidoza Campos, PhD. teaches in the Religion, Theology, and Spirituality department at Convent & Stuart Hall, Schools of the Sacred Heart San Francisco. In Ethics, Campos guides his students to explore the correlation between personhood and citizenship.

Image-empty-state.png

Andrew Scott

Board Chair

Andrew Scott was born in London. His mother was a Holocaust survivor from Berlin who lost 29 family members in Auschwitz. Andrew’s professional career includes work as a college instructor (University of London, San Francisco State...

Image-empty-state.png

Cynthia Larsen

Board Member

Cynthia Larsen serves as the Director of the Academic Support Center at Marin Catholic High School. She has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law School...

Image-empty-state.png

Lynne Schuman

Board Member

Lynne Schuman is originally from Chicago. She has a BA in Education and an MA in Law and Legal Studies. She works with her husband’s law office in San Francisco. As a 15-year-old she went with her family to Germany...

Image-empty-state.png

Carrie J. Schroeder

Board Member

A native of New Jersey, Carrie J. Schroeder moved to California almost 30 years ago and now considers the San Francisco Bay area to be her true home. She currently serves as the Director of Faith Formation at Ecole Notre Dame des Victoires...

Image-empty-state.png

Sophia Cuperstein

Student Board Member

Sophia Cuperstein is a student at Convent High school in San Francisco. She learned about the Farkas Center through her school’s student outreach and volunteer program. The Farkas Center’s focus on survivor’s...

Anchor 1
Asset 2.png

3739 Balboa St. Ste. 240

San Francisco, CA 94121

The Farkas Center

Phone: (415) 579-3258

Email: farkascenter@gmail.com

We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Tax ID #83-4233924.

All donations are tax deductible as permitted by law.

Donate with PayPal
Screenshot 2026-01-27 at 1.35.59 PM.png
Join Our Mailing List Today!

Please enter your email and/or address and you're all set

Thank you for subscribing!

YouTube.png
bottom of page