Loretta Maestranzi

Recipient of the 2024 Volunteer Leadership Award

Loretta Maestranzi, one of five in an Italian-American Catholic family, grew up with a brother born with Down Syndrome in 1951, which inspired her to serve the disability population by leading a Medicaid Waiver Program, ensuring that adults with disabilities had the support and services needed to live in the home of their choice in the community. During this time, Loretta was raising her two sons to young adulthood and then proceeded to attain her AM degree and her Certificate from the Graduate Program of Health Policy and Administration from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice (hereafter called “the School”). After graduation, Loretta transitioned to a career in healthcare social work, eventually becoming the Social Services Director of a five-star rated skilled nursing facility, during the onset of the pandemic, to currently
serving the most vulnerable of populations as a social work case manager at Alexian Brothers Medical Center. Loretta works with the most medically complex and psychosocially challenged cases—the undocumented, the homeless, those with
substance abuse disorders and mental illness, and complex stroke victims. She collaborates with the care teams and families of these patients to transition them to the optimal next step in their continuum of care.

Before her nearly ten-year stint as a Crown Family School Alumni Board Member, Loretta had served the School as the leader of the Student Government Association when she was a graduate student. Upon graduation in 2014, Loretta was invited to join the school’s alumni board and served most of her years on the executive committee. During this time, the Alumni Board in collaboration with the School, created precedents: the first Alumni Board Strategic Plan, the first Alumni Survey distributed to alumni across the country, the first major revision of Alumni Board Bylaws, and the first seat at
the table of the School’s Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Committee. Above all, Loretta has considered herself very fortunate to have had these opportunities to serve the School, as Loretta believes she had been allowed to have been part of “something
bigger than ourselves” in helping the School meet its Mission, “Advancing a More Just and Humane Society.”

In Appreciation
Loretta is both honored and humbled to receive the Crown Family School’s 2024 Volunteer Leadership Award. Honored because she is one of the few Crown Family School Alumni who have received such an award; humbled, as Loretta has collaborated with so many talented Crown Family School Alumni who also deserve this award. Above all, Loretta receives this award with deep appreciation to the Crown Family School Dean, Deborah Gorman-Smith; Alumni Relations Associate Director, Maggi Steib; President of the Crown Family School Alumni Board, Peter Gaumond; and, of course, the rest of the Crown Family School Alumni Board.