At The Heallist Foundation, we believe proactive wellness cannot be designed from a distance.
Our board brings together founders, educators, wellness practitioners, athletes, and community leaders who have spent their careers, and in many cases their lives, inside the work we are now building for others. Each member holds a piece of the whole: business discipline, community trust, clinical expertise, athletic credibility, and the day-to-day experience of raising and serving children in the communities we aim to reach.
Founder and Chairman
Christine Carey
Christine Carey is a 25-year veteran of media, brand strategy, and philanthropic leadership, and the Founder of The Heallist Foundation and Storybox Studio. Her philanthropic track record includes raising more than $1.5 million through the Life Is Priceless Foundation, with grants to the Life is Good Playmaker Project, NAMI, and Wounded Warrior Project, alongside long-standing volunteer work with Make-A-Wish and Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. A Lower East Side native raising five children in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, she built the Foundation for the families she grew up with and the ones she is raising her kids alongside today.
Co-Founder and Board Director
Yuli Ziv
Yuli Ziv is a serial tech entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Heallist.com, a global platform connecting more than 3,000 holistic practitioners across 55 countries. Her own path to wellness is what convinced her the work of holistic healing belongs in the hands of the people who need it most, not locked behind the price points of the wellness economy. She co-founded The Heallist Foundation to build that bridge.
Director of Wellness Programs
Jodi Carey
Jodi Carey is a world-renowned yoga instructor and somatic healing practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of elite performance and trauma-informed care. She trains elite professional athletes and has delivered trauma-informed programming for Camp Lejeune veterans, drawing on the same body-based healing principles at the heart of The Body Keeps the Score. Her conviction that these tools can change the trajectory of a child’s life is the foundation of the Foundation’s wellness programming.
Director of Sports & Recreation Programs
Carmen Mercadante
Carmen Mercadante is a longtime coach and community builder in the Pocono Mountain region whose athletes have earned scholarships to programs including Penn State, Pittsburgh, Drexel, Temple, Cornell, and Ohio State. He is the founding director of Alpha Dawgz Wrestling Club and leads Mountain Forge, the Foundation’s youth athletics program. He does not sugarcoat the work and does not need to. Kids show up, kids get better, and the record speaks for itself.
Treasurer
Mark Low
Mark Low has spent more than 40 years in employee benefits and financial planning, bringing the Foundation the kind of operational and fiscal discipline that long-term institutions are built on. He grew up in a community like the ones the Foundation now serves, which is not a footnote on his biography. It is why he sits on this board. He is here because he knows what access to the right resources at the right time can change, and what the absence of them costs.
Directors
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Galia Galansky Director of Operations and Equity -
Gina Carey Director of Community Engagement -
Jade Diaz Director of Community and Education -
Kara Adamik Director of Whole Child Programs -
Marc Brisebois Director of Facilities, Mountain Rise
Youth & Community Voices
Board of Advisors
The Foundation’s Advisory Board brings the voices of young people and first-generation community leaders into the governance of the work. Their perspective is not symbolic. The decisions this Foundation makes are decisions that will land in communities like the ones they come from, and their input shapes how the programming takes shape.
Advisor
Solana Quezada
A first-generation college student from the Lower East Side studying to become a nurse, Solana has been connected to community care work since childhood through Henry Street Settlement. She brings a perspective that cannot be taught. She has lived the communities this foundation was built to serve.
Youth Advisor
Sofia Brisebois
Pre-med student at Lafayette College and medical care assistant at St. Luke’s University Health Network. As President of Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), Sofia brings a future clinician’s perspective and a personal commitment to making healthcare accessible to every child.
Youth Advisor
Olivia Brisebois
Aspiring biomedical engineer and competitive wrestler, Olivia works alongside her mother on day-to-day community outreach and brings hands-on experience from Kalahari and Great Wolf Lodge, two of the country’s largest children’s recreation destinations. She represents the generation this foundation is building toward.
We are building the proactive layer every health system needs and most communities don’t have, starting with the people on this page.
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