Sarah’s story begins long before she arrived at JBAY. “I’ll never forget the month I turned 18, emancipated from foster care, and graduated from high school,” she says. “I got my diploma and walked across the stage to shake hands with the Board of Supervisors. They gave me a $500 check and basically said, ‘Good luck.’”
Fortunately, Sarah had already earned a scholarship to her top-choice college, San Diego State University. It was there she discovered her passion for advocacy and began to understand the power of opportunity and public investment. After college, she earned a master’s degree in public policy, founded a nonprofit to support transition-age youth and young parents, and joined JBAY in 2020.
Her journey has not been easy. Like many young people leaving foster care, Sarah faced uncertainty and instability. But she also experienced what happens when systems provide not just programs, but real pathways to success. “I’m not a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story,” she says. “I’m the product of significant state investments—of second, third, and fourth chances, and of tangible support like financial aid and housing. I’m the product of the very efforts JBAY has fought for year after year.”
That perspective now drives her leadership. Sarah was also the personal choice of JBAY’s late founder, Senator John Burton, who believed deeply in her ability to carry forward his life’s work. John often said, “If the state takes you away from your family, it becomes your parent—and it damn well better act like it.” His words reflect the heart of JBAY’s mission, one that continues under Sarah’s leadership: to ensure California not only cares for youth in foster care but also invests in, believes in, and ensures they have every opportunity to thrive.
Sarah has turned that belief into action. She was a leading youth advocate for Assembly Bill 12 (AB 12), which became law in 2010 and extended foster care in California to age twenty-one—creating the nation’s most comprehensive Extended Foster Care Program. To date, JBAY has championed more than fifty-six legislative reforms and secured $3.6 billion in new state and federal investments for youth in foster care or experiencing homelessness.
Sarah steps into this role with deep respect for those who led before her. Amy Lemley, JBAY’s longtime Executive Director, built an organization of unmatched tenacity, leading landmark policy victories, including extending foster care to age 21 and creating the nation’s first Foster Youth Tax Credit. Debbie Raucher, who served as Interim Executive Director, strengthened JBAY’s programs and helped ensure that every public college and university in California now has a fully funded foster youth support program.
JBAY’s work over the past two decades has paved the way for leaders like Sarah—people whose lives were shaped by the very systems JBAY has fought to reform. The policies and programs born of this work enabled Sarah and thousands of others like her to imagine a future beyond survival. Now, she leads the organization that helped make that future possible.
As Sarah looks to the future, her focus is clear. She and the JBAY team are working to make sure every young person who has experienced foster care or housing instability has a fair shot at college, a stable career, and a safe place to call home. The goals are big, but they’re also deeply personal—because the systems JBAY is trying to change are the same ones that once shaped her life. “This work has never been about one organization or one person,” Sarah says. “Real change happens when people come together—partners, advocates, policymakers, and young people themselves—all pushing toward the same goal. That’s how systems start to work the way they should.”
Sarah leads with both humility and hope. She knows what it’s like to age out of foster care and face the world alone. She also knows what it means to be supported, seen, and given the tools to succeed. As she takes JBAY into its next chapter, she carries the same message she once needed to hear at 18: you’re not alone, and there is a path forward.
We’re proud to have Sarah at the helm and grateful to every supporter who helps make this work possible. Together, we can build a California where every young person leaving foster care has not only a safety net, but a future filled with possibilities.
To help make that future real, donate today at www.jbay.org/donate