WPI State Class of 2013
Vonya Quarles Esq. is a native Californian and the co-founder of Starting Over, Inc. Starting Over, Inc. has operated for over 10 years, and has helped over 1000 men, women, and children address immediate housing needs while working to address long-term solutions that include systems change. Vonya blends experience, education, logic, and love, into an organic concoction that has helped to organize and lift the voices of people who have been historically marginalized.
Vonya holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and a Juris Doctorate. She practices law and criminal justice policy work. Vonya is one of the founding members of the Riverside All of Us or NONE Chapter that works to end the discrimination faced by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. She is system-impacted herself and works to address the complexities and collateral consequences of criminal convictions as they relate to family reunification, housing, employment, and other intersections.
Vonya was a 2011 Women Organizing for Justice Fellow, 2012/13 Women’s Policy Institute Fellow, 2013 Eleanor Jean Greer Leadership Academy Fellow, 2015 W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) Racial Equity and Healing Fellow and a current Rosenberg Leading Edge Fellow working on Family Reunification. Vonya has fused these developmental opportunities with her own lived experiences to become a powerful and competent systems change agent that works within ever-widening circles.