Catherine DeLaura

Executive Director

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989, Catherine DeLaura joined the Peace Corps in Micronesia as a teacher.  Her experiences there ignited her life-long passion for education.  Through a Peace Corps Fellows Scholarship, she pursued a Masters in TESOL at Teacher’s College, Columbia University and taught full-time at Taft High School in the South Bronx.  While at Taft, she realized that the public school system was flawed and set out to change it.  As a leader of a restructuring process, she founded the first small school within Taft called the Academy of the Arts.  After 5 years at Taft, she moved on to teach and develop her leadership skills at The Heritage School, a new public school in East Harlem. 

      Her passion for providing educational opportunities to all students and applying new tools to education led her to pursue an MBA from Columbia Business School in 2001. She was then selected to be the Assistant and after one year the Principal of School of the Future (SOF), a model school of the Coalition of Essential Schools.  Her experience at SOF allowed her to re-conceptualize her vision of education based on small schools that allow students to develop critical thinking skills in personalized learning communities.

      Catherine, who is resident in the DR, is excited to be a part of the DREAM Project and provide the children of the Cabarete area with the powerful educational experiences and skills they need to be successful.

Jonathan Wunderlich

Director of Development

Jonathan Wunderlich has been with The DREAM Project since 2004, its first year of operations. Originally from Rochester, New York, Jon graduated from Ithaca College with degrees in Writing and English Literature. For the last thirteen years, he has held various titles and certifications as a teacher, trainer, professor, and business consultant. Before moving to the Dominican Republic, he lived overseas for eight years in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and Germany, contributing to a global perspective on many different cultural issues. Jon received training and solid experience as a teacher at the USES University in Buenos Aires and then became a business consultant working in intercultural communications and giving seminars on business negotiations, language and presentations. His consultant work included contracts with Roche, Nestle, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telecom, Siemens, and Zurich AG. Initially, Jon came to the Dominican Republic to visit a good friend, write a novel and do some volunteer work before moving to San Francisco to take another teaching position. After becoming a DREAM volunteer, he began working with DREAM fulltime in June 2004 and was offered the position of Dominican Director. Since then, Jon has watched The DREAM Project grow from a small, grass roots organization, into an internationally recognized non-profit.

Emily MacDowell

US Office Manager

Emily MacDowell, a native of Vermont, graduated from Ithaca College in 2006 with a B.A. in writing and anthropology. She has studied abroad in Merida, Mexico, studied anthropology in Hawaii, interned at the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian, and spent a semester in Washington DC interning in the research department of National Geographic Magazine. She is a freelance writer and served as the coordinator of the nonprofit Children of Rural Africa from December 2006 to January 2008. She has been with the DREAM Project since December of 2007.

Socorro Acevedo

Director of Personnel and Office Manager of the DREAM Center

Socorro Acevedo was born and raised in Sosua, Puerto Plata on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Socorro began working for the DREAM Project in the spring of 2008. Prior to coming to dream she worked for Windsurf Resort hotel in Cabarete for 10 years. Socorro studied English in college and is now fluent in the language.

Julie De Smet

DREAM Center Community Director

Julie has been living and working overseas for over 8 years. Her background in sports and education enabled her to work whilst traveling and acquire a wide range of different teaching and living experiences. Originally from Belgium, she grew up in many different countries as her family moved every three years. The desire of discovering the world and different cultures is something that has been with her ever since. She graduated from La Trobe University, Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in outdoor education and a graduate diploma in high school teaching. Julie started working for DREAM in June 2008. Prior to DREAM she was coordinating a sports and Spanish study away from home program (Norway – the Dominican Republic) for university students.