Stephanie Mills is the Director of Programs for Hudson Pride Center. She champions leadership in the development, and planning of HPC’s evolving groups, as well as implementation of HPC’s Health Services. Stephanie oversees support groups and social programs at Hudson Pride. She manages the Client Services & Youth Program staff which provides Hudson County residents with: preventative and treatment information surrounding HIV/AIDS, direct access to testing to determine their status, and — if found to be positive— assists them with navigating linkage to medical care, as well as with a variety of other care services that HPC supports.

Stephanie is a New Jersey native, born and raised in Paterson, where she obtained her high school diploma from East Side High, depicted in the famous film, “Lean On Me”. She graduated from William Paterson University, earning her B.A. in English. She served as an AmeriCorps member (AmeriCorps is a voluntary civil society program that engages adults in public service work with a goal of helping others and meeting critical needs in the community), which included mentoring and coordinating programs for high school students as well as serving as the Program Director for then-Mayor, Corey Booker’s “Brick City Serves” initiative, where she nurtured partnerships with schools, nonprofit organizations, and social services leaders to bridge community needs with effective resources.

Since joining the HPC team in 2011, Stephanie has contributed tremendous efforts to creating safer spaces throughout Hudson County for our LGBTQ+ community. She was unanimously voted as Vice Chair for the Hudson County HIV/AIDS Planning Council, proudly serves on the Jersey City AIDS Task Force, Jersey City Public School Early Childhood Advisory Council, recently committed to Partners In Prevention’s Board of Trustees and the Hudson County Substance Use Task Force. Her accomplishments include: making her family proud, becoming a parent, being invited as a highlighted speaker for college LGBTQ+ focused events, being featured in the Business Equality Magazine (Top 40 under 40 LGBTQ+ Leaders) and being promoted to Director of Programs with Hudson Pride Center. She hopes to develop a robust LGBTQ+ presence and an inclusive community center in Paterson, NJ.