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Meet the Founder
 LAUREN COHEN
Founder and Executive Director
Lauren Cohen received a BA in political science from Union College and MPA in health policy and planning from New York University. Following graduate school, she spent 16 years working as a consultant in the health care field.
Now retired from fulltime work, Cohen devotes most of her time to not-for-profit activities. She serves as Executive Director of The Gift of Hope, a program in association with Friends of McCord, which she established in June 2006 on her first visit to South Africa. Moved by what she saw and experienced on the ground in KwaZulu Natal, she learned quickly that every individual has the capacity to make a difference in the life of a person with HIV, and has devoted herself to this cause ever since.
Following that first visit, Cohen traveled yearly to volunteer at McCord Hospital and to work on expanding The Gift of Hope. When she was home in Goldens Bridge, New York she worked to spread awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa and to raise funds for The Gift of Hope.
Cohen is also a member of the Union College President’s Council and has partnered with the Union College Minerva Fellowship program to address the HIV/AIDS issues in South Africa. This fellowship provides a graduating senior the opportunity to live and work in South Africa, where they can experience and learn about the HIV epidemic in a very personal way, while also contributing to the community in which they work.
In January 2012 Lauren and her husband Gary moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, providing the opportunity for Lauren to be more engaged on the ground with her local partners and projects. With an interest in supporting her own neighbors in need, Lauren established a new partnership in 2014 with The Witkoppen Health and Welfare Centre, located in Johannesburg just 15 minutes from her home away from home. The Gift of Hope is proud to be expanding its reach into a new community in need.
"Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so indispensable,
none so powerful, as hope."
— Charles W. Sawyer
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