AFRECS Announces New President
Anita Sanborn of Angola, Indiana, has been elected to succeed Philip Darrow of Denver, Colorado, who has served as president for the past eight years.
Anita retired as President of the Colorado Episcopal Foundation in 2018 after serving in that capacity for 15 years. She was actively engaged with the Sudanese community in Colorado between 2000-2023. She was instrumental in founding the Leadership Institute of the New Sudan which conducted several leadership training sessions in Denver and in Juba while it operated. In 2004, she joined the Board of AFRECS. During her first season on the Board, she traveled to Darfur and in the following years made several trips to South Sudan and Sudan and to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. During a hiatus from AFRECS, she served as the Chair of the Board of the Iliff School of Theology in Denver from 2017-2019. Having completed 3 terms on the Iliff Board, she was elected an Honorary Trustee and remains active with the Iliff Women’s Alliance. She rejoined the AFRECS Board in 2019 and was elected President of the Board in May,2024. Anita earned her Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Illinois – Chicago and later a Master’s in Public Administration from the Andrew Young School of Public Policy at Georgia State. Her early career focused on health planning, long term care and maternal and child health. She held executive and senior management positions with the Alzheimer’s Association in Denver and at the national office in Chicago. She now resides in Indiana where she is engaged in community issues.