Board Members
Amer is the founder of SunJams and head of the board. He is a retired endocrinologist with a lifelong passion for music and music education. He is also our chief jam-making expert! When he is not hard at work for SunJams or his many other professional endeavors, he enjoys hiking, cooking, and dragging his family to live music events.
Amer Budayr
Founder & CEO
Julia Allen
Fundraising Chair
With over 20 years of executive experience in the technology sector, Julia brings a unique blend of innovation, leadership, and strategic insight to the nonprofit’s board. As a dedicated humanitarian, she is deeply committed to advancing initiatives that create meaningful social impact and strengthen community well-being. A lifelong lover of music, she believes in the power of creativity and connection to inspire collaboration, compassion, and positive change.
Joyce Brenner
Board Member
Joyce Brenner was born and raised in Northern California. After working on a construction crew building campgrounds, she returned to college for her B.S. in Civil Engineering. She worked 30+ years as a professional engineer, then retired in 2017 to work for non-profits in the Sacramento area. She returned to the Bay Area in 2022. Joyce has always enjoyed musical events, for the happiness it brings and for the community spirit it provides. She is excited about the possibility of bringing more music to more people, for both enjoyment and community support, through working with SunJams.
Basil Ayesh
Board Member
Helping public schools offer arts-integrated learning became a passion of Basil's during his children's primary school education, when he witnessed how music education impacted students' engagement in teamwork, reading, math, and focus. He joined the SunJams board to help bring some of those benefits to other schools and to share his untapped talent for benefit auctioneering to assist SunJams in reaching its goals.
Anaya Budayr
Event Production & Media Director
Anaya Budayr is a recent college graduate and proud daughter of Amer and Anna. She has been working for the foundation since its inception over ten years ago. She specialize in volunteer coordination during events and social media management. When she is not studying, she enjoys music, painting, and cooking. As someone who has been involved in group music ensembles since early childhood, she is dedicated to SunJams’s mission of making these opportunities more accessible across the Bay Area.
Tawfic Halaby
Board Member
Tawfic Halaby brings a lifelong passion for music and its power to connect people across cultures to his work on the SunJams Board of Directors. A longtime vocalist, he spent years with the World Harmony Chorus, including a cultural music exchange to Cuba, and has worked with Expressive Arts Refuge on refugee music programs across France, Greece, and Lebanon. As a collaborator, he has lent his voice to productions including The Prepared Table and The Lost American Jazzbook, and has performed with the Bay Area's ASWAT Arabic ensemble. Tawfic also co-hosts 94.1 KPFA's Music of the World radio program.
Chris Siebert
Board Member
Chris Siebert is a jazz musician who plays piano and Hammond organ. He is the co-founder and musical director of Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. Chris loves to travel and loves music from around the world, especially from Brazil and Cuba. He is a big fan of the music that SunJams presents, and a big believer in SunJams’s mission to fund music education in under-served schools.