The Speakers

Casey Hanson

Ellicia Lanier

Joey Saunders

Katie Hamm

Casey Hanson

Casey is the Deputy Director at Kids Win Missouri and plays a leadership role in the organization’s stakeholder engagement initiatives and child health policy. Prior to her current role, Casey was the Policy and Communications Coordinator for the Missouri After School Network (MASN).

Ellicia Lanier

Ellicia is the founding Executive Director of Urban Sprouts, a diverse Reggio Emilia school focusing on early childhood education. With over 20 years of experience in the field, Ellicia is passionate about her work and committed to realizing her vision of social justice through early childhood education.

Joey Saunders

Moderating our Wednesday afternoon panel, Joey is an award-winning educator, writer, filmmaker, and strategic consultant who now serves as Chief of Strategy and Institutional Advancement at Urban Sprouts. Joey brings deep experience in community organizing and childcare justice, including leading the Tomorrow Builders Fellowship in St. Louis and co-authoring Childcare Justice.

Learn more about Urban Sprout's work here

Katie Hamm

Katie Hamm is a nationally recognized leader in early childhood policy with more than 20 years of experience shaping federal policy and advancing national advocacy efforts. She brings a rare combination of senior government leadership, policy design expertise, and deep knowledge of the early care and education landscape.

Lisa Scheer

Lisa is the Director of Baden Christian Child Care in North St. Louis, which opened in 1998 to provide children in an underserved neighborhood with a high-quality, faith-rooted early learning environment from birth through age 12. As a leading childcare advocate in Missouri, Lisa has helped advance initiatives like St. Louis’s Prop R and continues to organize for stronger public investment in the childcare workforce.

MacKenzie Grayson

MacKenzie Grayson, Director of Campaigns & Coalitions, has extensive experience in community organizing, programming and advocacy on the local, state and federal level. She has testified at the state and federal level for funding that has enhanced programming on the local level for children and families. MacKenzie is a Black mother of three, nonprofit executive, and advocate who's been in the rooms where decisions about children and families are made and centered families voices who are often excluded.

Mario Cardona

Mario is an accomplished executive leader with nearly 20 years of high-level experience in law and policy. He has been a political appointee to two Presidents, a scholar at one of the largest research universities in the country, a senior staff member in the United States Senate, a litigator at a national law firm, and the chief policy officer for one of the country’s largest non-profits focused on early care and education.

Stephanie Andersen

Stephanie is the manager of the Clark-Fox Policy Institute at the Brown School, where she works to align scientific research with lived experience to advance policies focused on improving child well-being. Prior to joining the institute, Stephanie spent a decade in public health policy research.