team Bay Area Health Program Officer

La Roux Pendleton

I was inspired by Stupskiʻs spend down approach because the Foundation is actually working to put itself out of business while striving for maximum impact across our communities.

La Roux Pendleton (she/her) joined Stupski Foundation in 2021 as the Bay Area Health Program Officer. She leads equity-focused grantmaking strategies in Alameda and San Francisco Counties at both ends of the life spectrum to 1) ensure that children are connected to integrated health and social services that will help them thrive, and to 2) improve how people with serious illness and their loved ones experience serious illness at the end of life.

Previously, La Roux served as the policy director for community wellness for the HOPE SF initiative, the nation’s first large-scale community development and racial justice initiative, in the Office of Mayor London N. Breed. In response to COVID-19, La Roux worked alongside residents, community partners, city agencies, and medical professionals to create a culturally responsive, place-based, community-driven approach to ensure COVID-19 testing and vaccinations were easily accessible to residents across HOPE SF’s four communities, Alice Griffith, Hunters View, Potrero Hill Terrace and Annex, and Sunnydale. That experience deepened her appreciation for how the government and health systems should work in collaboration with community partners to deliver health care in equitable and inclusive ways.

La Roux also serves on the board and volunteers with Safe Black Space, which offers workshops and healing circles for people of African ancestry, providing a safe space to process and heal from racial stress and trauma.

She received a Master in Public Health from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

La Roux approaches equity work with a strong sense of purpose while being deeply rooted in the spirit of servitude. She is humbled to have the opportunity to do this work in the community where she was born and raised.