Meyressa Schoonmaker

Meyressa Schoonmaker, Treasurer
Board of Directors
Resource Institute
Winston-Salem, NC 

Meyressa was born and raised in Guilford County, NC, and loved living in the country with free-range game chickens, wild blackberries, garden tomatoes, and summer vegetables ready for picking. Meyressa now lives not far away in the city of Winston-Salem on land bordering a creek, a subsidiary of Silas Creek, with peaceful bluebirds, menacing beavers, roaming deer which munch on her basil and tomato blossoms, and tolerates summer creek flooding as her neighborhood has infringed on natural habitat.

She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and law school (1968) and attended the Free University of Berlin, West Berlin, Germany in 1961. She has practiced law since 1968 and was a board-certified family law specialist.

She also served at Wake Forest University as an assistant to the president for legal affairs, associate general counsel and adjunct professor of law.  She founded the NC Center for Laws Affecting Women, Inc., a nonprofit center, and was instrumental in drafting and passage of the first Equitable Distribution law in North Carolina and domestic violence 50B protective pro se laws.

In 2009 Meyressa was inducted into the North Carolina Bar Association’s General Practice Hall Of Fame and also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.

She received the 2006 Environmental Award from Pilot View, Inc. for leading the development of the Upper Silas Creek Watershed Project and has served in numerous volunteer capacities as a board member of the Legal Aid Society, Department of Social Services, Family Services, and the Salvation Army Boys’ Club. She is presently a board member of Pilot View Inc. and Resource Institute and a lifetime member of the Oak Island Beach Preservation Society.

Meyressa is married, has two children, five granddaughters, and wishes to spend more time at the NC coast. She hopes to continue contributing to environmental protection.