Celia Slater

Celia is co-founder and resident visionary of Play With Purpose. She is also currently Head Women's Basketball Coach at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. Her athletic career has been multifaceted; she was a four-year basketball scholarship athlete and named Most Valuable Player of the women's team during her senior year at Florida State University. Celia also played on the gold medal winning USA Women's Handball Team at the 1987 Olympic Festival.

Her coaching career has had many highlights, including the opportunity to pioneer the women's basketball program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) and be its first head coach. Within three years, Celia had built a solid program and her team finished second in their conference. She was nominated for coach of the year in her district and their defense was ranked twelfth in the nation.

Celia also found time to complete her Master's Degree in Sports Administration. While taking a time-out from coaching, she served as Vice President of Client Services at Bruce Levy Associates Inc., a New York City based sports management company which gave her the opportunity to represent professional women athletes here and in Europe.

Celia was a part of the professional staff at the first ever pre-draft camp for the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 1997 and returned again in 1998. She is well regarded for her depth of knowledge and use of strategy to develop winning teams, but is most admired for her caring and commitment to young women athletes.

Celia has also been dedicated to her personal and spiritual development. She is a certified Change Cycle™ Trainer, and has experienced retreats and seminars including Women of Vision in Action, with Marianne Williamson, Conversations With God, Intensive Retreat, with Neale Donald Walsh and Wonder Woman Weekend, with Iyanla Vanzant.

Laurie Hrebenak

Laurie is the co-founder of Play With Purpose. Her managerial and operational skills, combined with her dedication to providing personal growth opportunities for teenagers, keeps her young at heart, and very busy.

Laurie was a star basketball player, receiving a four-year scholarship to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She also played semi-professional softball in New Jersey.

Laurie's background and work experience is business related. She established and supervised the international sporting goods export division at Bruce Levy Associates Inc., a New York City based sports management company. She also represented professional woman athletes in Europe, South America and Asia for almost 10 years. She then was offered the opportunity to be an operations manager for the Pepsi Cola Bottling Group where her responsibilities included customer service, staff recruiting and development, maintaining performance standards and increasing productivity.

Her success at Pepsi gave her the initiative to make the dream she and Celia 'talked about' during their work days together at Bruce Levy and Associates, into a reality. Laurie became a Certified Change Cycle™ Trainer, and has combined those concepts and skills with her diverse management experiences into developing a strong business strategy to grow Play With Purpose through the years.