Foundation Board Members
Cristin Carole -Founder & President
Cristin Carole, our co-founder, began her dance training at the Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre in Chicago under her great aunt, former director of the National Dance School and Company of The Bahamas, Shirley Hall-Bass. She is a former lecturer at the School of Education at the University of The Bahamas, served for ten years as adjunct faculty for Columbia College Chicago’s Graduate Program in Education and is presently faculty in the Theater department at Loyola University in Chicago. In 2001, Cristin passed The Royal Academy of Dance Ballet Instructor’s Exam and choreographed for various organizations in The Bahamas including the National Dance Company and Youth Choir. Later, Ms. Carole joined The Joffrey Ballet as the Education and Community Engagement Manager and was instrumental in the creation of its Bridge Program for children of color in Chicago. Cristin has worked as a dance consultant, choreographer, and director for many Chicago theaters. In addition to her 20 years of teaching general education in Chicago Public Schools with endorsements in secondary science, social studies, drama and primary education, Ms. Carole has led numerous professional learning workshops for teachers on the implementation of movement across the curriculum. Cristin is a member of the National Dance Educators Organization (NDEO), a NDEO Connected Arts Network Fellow, and Society of Directors and Choreographers Foundation Denham Fellow. She is the director of the Shirley Hall Bass Foundation (SHBF), a US non-profit, which supports the legacy of her great aunt.
Sheldon Lane -Vice President
A graduate of The University of Wisconsin, stage and production manager for live entertainment, Sheldon P. Lane rounded out well over 45 years in the entertainment industry as Associate Production Manager for Arizona Theatre Company for the last 5 seasons. His other US regional theatre credits include Goodman Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre & 8 seasons as production manager of Ebony Repertory Theatre in Los Angeles. His stage management career also includes a season with Sankofa Theatre in Seattle, 2 seasons at Boitsov Classical Ballet in Chicago, and 13 years with Universal Studios Hollywood as well as dozens more concerts, music festivals, & special events. Since his teaching career began in 1996 at City Colleges of Chicago, Sheldon has also enjoyed being a favored guest lecturer at University of Southern California and California State University. He is a founding member of the production arm of Africa International House, that produced the acclaimed, African Festival Of The Arts in Chicago.
Melanie Maldonado -Secretary
Melanie Maldonado is a cultural organizer, arts educator and nonprofit professional rooted in direct service. Early in her career, she provided mentorship, academic enrichment and leadership development to youth through Young Life (Chicago and Tampa), ASPIRA, Inc of Illinois (Chicago) and the Latino Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Over time, Melanie’s nonprofit work focused on resource development, initially as a consultant (supporting programs for adults with special needs, low-income housing and community arts organizations) then through positions at America’s Families United (civic engagement - Washington, DC), Lawrence Hall Youth Services (foster care - Chicago), Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (arts programming - Orlando) and Orange County Public Schools (K-12 education - Orlando). This experience is augmented by years of volunteerism at the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (now National Puerto Rican Museum - Chicago), Escuela de Bomba y Plena Tata Cepeda (AfroPuerto Rican music - Kissimmee) and Alianza Center (civic engagement and climate work - Orlando), among other organizations. Melanie founded PROPA (Puerto Rican Organization for the Performing Arts) in 2003 and lectures across the country on her research into women’s agency in AfroPuerto Rican Bomba, the importance of community textiles, genealogy, lineages of learning, folk songs as critical records, placemaking and historic spaces of praxis. In 2011, Melanie started a Lugares Históricos project which highlights Black history sites in Puerto Rico (about which she has two 2024 book chapters through Routledge and Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña). In 2018, she led a first-of-its-kind community tour of these ancestral spaces and in 2019 began dedicating historical markers (13 to date) at these locations of importance for African diasporic gathering and traditional practices. Her work in Bomba has received six mayoral proclamations and recognitions by Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives and is the first work representing Puerto Rico to be admitted to the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network. Melanie is an alumnus of the Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program and served as a state appointed grant reviewer for arts and culture in Florida (2016 - 2022). She has a B.A. in Theatre and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, an M.S. in Human Services from Springfield College and completed doctoral coursework in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Melanie is published through Cambridge Scholars Press (2008) and the Centro Journal (2008, 2019), served as a Boricua slang editor for HEY YO! ¡YO SOY!! (2012) and Obatala’s Bugalu (2013); and contributed to the Grove Dictionary of American Music (2013). She was one of the 2020 Women in Culture for the New Jersey-based Raices Cultural Center; a 2021 Matriarcado honoree for Buffalo, NY-based El Batey; a 2022 speaker of both the Afrorriqueñes series at Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in Chicago and the Arturo Alfonso Schomburg Symposium at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia; and a 2023 invitee to the inaugural Descendant Communities Social Innovation Lab co-convened by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Melanie has served as the lead point of contact in Puerto Rico for the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project since 2023 and in 2024 served as an anti-racist curator for Tiznando el PaÃs - a national Black arts project in Puerto Rico. She is a board member of Martha’s House (Park Forest, IL), Collective Umoja (Guayama, Puerto Rico) and Shirley Hall Bass Foundation (Chicago, IL) and serves as an advisor representing Puerto Rico to the National Trust for Historic Preservation (Washington, DC). Melanie is an active resident of Central Florida where she serves as the Principal (consultant and genealogist) of KarabalÃ, LLC.
Christine Wallace-Whitfield - Cultural Advisor
Christine Wallace-Whitfield, CIPS, CRS, BRI, IRM is a distinguished Bahamian real estate professional and community leader. Five-time elected president of the Bahamas Real Estate Association (2017–2022) and two-term president of the Grand Bahama Chapter, she is among less than one percent of Bahamian agents to hold NAR's trademarked Realtor® certification and one of the only Bahamian brokers invited to address the National Association of Realtors national conference.
Christine began her career in 1997, earning her CRS (Certified Residential Specialist) designation in 2000. She practiced in Grand Bahama for 15 years before spending three years in Exuma, then reestablishing herself in Nassau in 2012. A proponent of continuous learning, she achieved her CIPS (Certified International Property Specialist) designation and joined the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing in 2018. She has appeared on three seasons of HGTV's Bahamas Life.
Beyond real estate, Christine serves as 2nd Vice President of the Bahamas Aquatics Federation and Treasurer of the Shirley Hall Bass Legacy Project—a role with deep personal significance, as Shirley Hall Bass was a cherished friend to her family and Christine's own performing arts teacher. Shirley also serves as treasurer of the Shirley Hall Bass Legacy Project. A former competitive swimmer who represented The Bahamas at the inaugural 1984 CARIFTA Swimming Championships, she remains committed to youth development and community service.