Women & Politics presents:
Women & Politics with Lawson Wijesooriya and Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger
Lawson Wijesooriya – Danny Avula for Mayor, Campaign Manager
Lawson Wijesooriya moved to Richmond, VA in 2004. She lives in an historically under-resourced neighborhood with her husband, two sons, and often several others in need of housing. After growing up in New Jersey, Lawson graduated from the University of Virginia as a Phi Beta Kappa Jefferson Scholar, and enjoyed her honors interdisciplinary major in the Political and Social Thought Program. She initially taught low-income, urban, middle school children for three years before leaving her post to help start Blue Sky Fund, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide transformational experiences for urban youth through outdoor adventure. Lawson served as its Founding Executive Director for 10 years. She was highlighted as Mentor of the Year by Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine and honored as Richmond Style Weekly’s Top 40 under 40 in 2010. After leaving Blue Sky in capable hands, Lawson opened an ice cream business in her neighborhood as a new social enterprise adventure. The for-profit company was formed in 2017 with a mission to provide a gathering place for all in the rapidly changing Church Hill neighborhood while creating job opportunities for youth. When her business partner took over operations at the Scoop, she went back to the non-profit sector as the Director of Development and Strategy for Urban Hope, a small affordable housing organization that provides homes for extremely low-income residents and seeks to protect against the displacement of Black households. Most recently, she took the leap to become Danny Avula’s Campaign Manager for his mayoral bid because she believes he is the best equipped to lead our city into a bright future.
Abigail Spanberger* – United States House of Representatives, VA-7
Abigail Spanberger represents Virginia’s 7th District in the House of Representatives, an office she has held since 2019. She is currently running for Governor of Virginia.
You can keep up with Representative Spanberger at @repspanberger on social media. Her House homepage is https://spanberger.house.gov/. Information about her gubernatorial campaign can be found at https://abigailspanberger.com/.
*This interview is being re-aired from Women & Politics’s 9/19 episode.
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Follow our host and producer on Twitter at @sherishannon27 and @carololson.
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Mara Guyer Women & Politics September 26th, 2024
Posted In: News
Tags: abigail spanberger, lawson wijesooriya, mayoral election, women and politics