AVDA's Staff

Jacqueline Pontello, JD

Executive Director

Attorney and veteran non-profit administrator Jacqueline Pontello joined Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse (AVDA) as Executive Director in August 2004. A passionate advocate on behalf of low income families and victims of domestic violence, Ms. Pontello's early experience during college as a volunteer at the San Antonio Food Bank inspired her subsequent career at the Houston Food Bank where she served as Acting Executive Director. Ms. Pontello later served as the first Director of Development and Community Relations for the Houston Food Bank and as its Acting Executive Director.

The experience of leading the state's largest hunger-relief agency in the wake of welfare reform inspired Ms. Pontello to enroll in the University of Houston Law Center, which boasts the nation's top-ranked Health Law & Policy Institute. Her advocacy for families in crisis continued during law school, when she temporarily relocated to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress for reauthorization of the Bill Russell School Lunch Act and the Community Food Nutrition Program (CFNP). Working in concert with Senators Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords, Ms. Pontello helped build a bipartisan coalition of Senators that successfully blocked the Bush Administration's planned elimination of CFNP and pressured the House into reauthorizing CFNP for seven more years. The UHLC faculty awarded Ms. Pontello the 2004 Distinguished Service Award.

Ms. Pontello is also a recipient of the Houston Food Bank's Albrecht Award for Volunteer Service and The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center's inaugural "Volunteer of the Year" award. Immediately after taking the Texas Bar, Ms. Pontello joined AVDA as only the third Executive Director in the organization's 25-year history.

Annette Lamoreaux, JD

Managing Attorney

Attorney, Annette Lamoreaux, has almost 20 years of litigation and appellate experience in state and federal courts.  She received her A.B. from Princeton University and her J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.  Her practice has historically focused on preserving the legal rights of low-income persons and racial and ethnic minorities.  She has been on the legal staff of the Texas Resource Center, the N.A.A.C.P. Houston Branch, and the American Civil Liberties Union.  She came to Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse in 2010 from the Texas Advocacy Project, where she was Legal Director.

As Managing Attorney, Ms. Lamoreaux supervises all of the legal counsel and legal support staff at AVDA, which includes seven in-house attorneys litigating up to 250 family law cases in Harris County.  In addition, she maintains her own docket of direct representation and access to court cases.

Ms. Lamoreaux frequently speaks on civil rights, civil liberties, and domestic violence topics.  She received the 2010 Impact Award in Poverty Law in recognition of pursuing a successful appellate case, which helped to preserve the rights of indigent pro se litigants to access the family courts.  She serves on the Board of the ACLU of Texas and is a member of the State Bar College.

Sherri Kendall, MEd., LPC

Battering Intervention & Prevention Program Director

Sherri Kendall, LPC, has been the Director of the Battering Intervention and Prevention Program at AVDA since 2005. She is a veteran in the field of domestic abuse, having begun over two decades ago as a victim advocate in Colorado. For most of the past 18 years, she has specialized in working with domestic violence offenders in Oklahoma and Texas, and has created and coordinated battering intervention programs for men and women as well as serving as the interim director of a shelter agency in Oklahoma. Sherri is an active member of the Texas Council on Family Violence, serving on various committees, and currently is a member of both the Harris County Death Review Team and the Fort Bend County Community Response Team. She holds a Masters of Education in Counseling from the University of Houston-Victoria, a Masters degree in Personnel Management/Industrial Relations from the University of London, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor.

Becky Blasingame

Director of Victim Services

Becky has over fifteen years of experience conducting statewide domestic violence training for law enforcement agencies, criminal justice agencies, family violence organizations, and university level trainings on domestic violence both as a volunteer and as a paid staff member of several agencies that address the issue of domestic violence. Becky has been a member of the Magnolia Volunteer Fire Department since 2000 at Station 183 in Magnolia, Texas. She is a member of the Texas Council on Family Violence, the Texas Victims Services Association, and the National Coalition against Domestic Violence. She has served on the Washington County Domestic Violence Task Force, the Grimes County Domestic Violence Task Force. and on the Board of the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council.

Becky is a recipient of the 1997 Toby Myers Statewide Leadership Award from The Texas Council on Family Violence and the 1998 "Carol S. Vance" Governor's Volunteer of the Year Award in from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.