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Mary Lunetto has over 20 years experience teaching and inspiring children and families. She realized her calling early in life and began teaching gymnastics, swimming, Sunday school and preschool, eventually became a parks and recreation leader. She went on to coach a community swim team and then became a high school swim coach. While working on her bachelors degree she worked as a Group Counselor at a home for abused children and had the opportunity to work directly with many community agencies including social services, health care and law enforcement. After earning her BS in Child Development she accepted a casework manager job at a child abuse prevention center and was promoted to Assistant Director within a year. Mary carried a caseload, wrote grants, worked on fundraising, coordinated many community agencies, and trained and supervised staff, college interns and volunteers. Due to her outstanding achievements with college interns, she was awarded the title Adjunct Professor at Cal Sate University Long Beach,at the same time she was volunteering with the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Orange County. At the Child Abuse Prevention Council, she served as Secretary of the Legislative Advocacy Committee and a member of the Blue Ribbon Community Action Campaign. She was also a volunteer with CAST and a member of Children Now and the California Consortium to Prevent Child Abuse.
When California had a shortage of elementary teachers, Mary felt the call and began a seven year teaching career. While teaching elementary school and working on her teaching credential, she took on many extra roles including principal designee, school site council chair, student study team, district advisory council, social committee chair, volunteer tea chair, grant writing, school representative, and bilingual advisory council. She quickly earned her teaching credential and was nominated for teacher of the year. She made the difficult decision to stop teaching in the classroom and start a family of her own.
Mary currently is spending her time as a wife and mother raising her two children and pursuing her other passion: astronomy and space. She is a member of the Riverside Astronomical Society and can be found volunteering at her children's school. Mary regularly sends emails to family and friends regarding things to watch for in the sky and current NASA missions. Her husband and children share her excitement for astronomy & NASA. Together they attend JPL's open house, drive out to Edwards to watch the space shuttle land, attend star parties, watch the night sky for satellites (especially the space shuttle and ISS), look through the telescope at home, go to local planetariums and observatories and watch the latest accomplishments of NASA on the NASA TV channel.
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