Farmer, Organizer and Educator. Ruby Olisemeka is an independent educator/consultant focused on socially transformative education; food justice; and the inclusion of African and indigenous practices in farming - as well as food and farming pedagogy. She began her farming career as an apprentice at Stone Barns (2011) and has since built numerous school and urban gardens in lower Westchester and Harlem. Ruby has over ten years’ experience educating children and young adults. She has worked as an educator at Edible Schoolyard NYC, Harlem Grown, as well as other institutions, including public and private schools. She is a facilitator with Farmschool NYC - an urban agriculture training program for adults.
She initiated and is a part of a grassroots community effort, "The Free Peoples Market,” whose mission is to bring local organically grown food to Mount Vernon residents at no or low cost (a “pay-what-you-can” model).
Artist & Community Organizer. Gabino is a community organizer at Yonkers Sanctuary Movement, a grassroots organization that mobilizes to keep immigrant families safe from detention and deportation and to fight for justice for the undocumented community in Yonkers. He recently started Grupo Multicultural y Social to teach and promote the culture of his community. This multicultural social group hosted a Day of the Dead event in Yonkers that was attended by hundreds.
Gabino’s start as an organizer in 1994 by fighting with a group of fellow textile factory workers to be paid the wages they were owed. In 2014, he started an organization called Somos Los Otros NY, along with friends and family members. This group formed after the disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico whose own Government killed and disappeared them. They have protested and have brought attention to the problems of corruption in Mexico. Gabino uses his artistic abilities to paint banners and masks that are used in the protests.
Gabino is an irrigation technician for a lawn sprinkler company. Everything he has learned he has acquired through his own efforts and his desire to learn.
Community Organizer and Trainer. Juanita is the Hudson Valley Organizing and Training Director for Community Voices Heard (CVH), a member-led multi-racial organization. CVH is principally comprised of women of color and low-income New York families who seek social, economic and racial justice for all. Juanita trains members of the community to lead strategic campaigns that bring issues affecting low-income people to the forefront. Juanita began her work as a community organizer with the Minnesota chapter of ACORN in 2004. Since then, she has worked on numerous electoral campaigns at the city, state and federal level in various capacities.
Born and raised in Saint Paul, MN, she graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a B.A. in History and Political Science, and received her Masters of Advocacy and Political Leadership Degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Juanita is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Artist, Healer, and Mother. Kathleen (Kat) Cancio was born in Pampanga, Philippines and currently resides in occupied Lenape territory, a.k.a. Spring Valley, NY. Her early activism was inspired by her experience growing up in the East Ramapo Central School District (ERCSD) where public education was constantly under attack by corrupt leadership. Having fought to defend the public school system as a student and now alumna, Kat has developed a deep love for her community and continues to combat injustices on behalf of future generations.
Kat’s lifework and passions also include a focus on the arts; youth and women’s empowerment; spiritual growth; ancestral healing and indigenous rights.
Kat helps support the Ramapough Lenape Nation in their struggle for land, cultural preservation and the protection of mother earth. She served as the Coordinator of Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp, a Ramapough-led campaign that stood in solidarity with the Standing Rock protests and against the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline in New Jersey. Kat was recently appointed to the Board of Directors for the Ramapough Lenape Nation.
Organizer, Fundraiser, Nonprofit Strategist. Maria is from Mount Vernon, NY where she was first introduced to faith-based and coalition community-organizing as a young child through the Coalition for the Empowerment of People of African Ancestry (CEPAA). In 2004, while still an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, Maria co-founded New Voices for Reproductive Justice to promote the complete health and well-being of black women, girls, and femmes. The organization is still headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, with offices in Philadelphia and Cleveland as well.
Maria has been a professional fundraiser and nonprofit strategist for 15 years, having raised more than $100 million for organizations such as Wave Hill (Bronx, NY), the National Black Child Development Institute, the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC), and the National Urban League (New York, NY).
Maria has been a Leading Organizer with Purpose Productions, helping artists and organizers with strategic planning, crowd funding, administration and other crucial needs. Maria has been coordinating the New York Youth Justice Initiative since 2018 and is a current Westchester County African American Advisory Board member.
Artist, Organizer, Radical Dreamer, Creatrix, Strategic Thinker, Abolitionist, Healer. Rae Leiner is a black-identified multi-racial queer organizer, activist and parent living in the Hudson Valley. Rae’s professional trajectory is primarily focused on social justice and movements for transformative change. Rae is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Newburgh LGBTQ+ center and is the former director of the Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative in the city of Newburgh. Rae was also a Community Voices Heard organizer in Orange County and brings 15+ years of professional experience in the not-for-profit field and social justice work.
As an experienced facilitator, organizer, strategic thinker, embodied practitioner, and relationship builder, Rae’s creative thinking, radical dreaming and informative analysis work toward creating an equitable society.
Community Organizer & Activist. Callie Jayne's desire to fight for justice began in the 8th Grade, protesting against inequitable dress code policies. Callie went on to finish an undergraduate degree in business, overcoming the challenges of being a single mother who bounced from job-to-job for a period of time. While completing her Masters in Nonprofit Management, she interned at a human services organization, which later hired her full-time. She built capacity, increasing the number of families who were able to access food. She also increased individual giving and community engagement. But Callie’s success in providing emergency services also came with the realization that she wasn’t doing enough to change the existing systems of oppression. Her life, work and educational experiences led her to confront the institutionalized barriers that were preventing her and many others - from all walks of life - from achieving a quality standard of living. Her desire for change comes from the belief that all people deserve a basic standard of living, and if we could all come together and hear many differing perspectives, we can use our struggles to achieve collective greatness.
Spoken Word Artist, Activist and Philosopher. Ibrahim Asad Siddiq (aka P.O.E.T) is not your average spoken word artist, more so an activist and philosopher rooted in poetry. P.O.E.T is an acronym for Putting Out Eternal Thoughts. In addition to performing, he is the artistic director of a grassroots arts program known as The FREE ART Project, through which he facilitates workshops and hosts open mics and showcases throughout NYC and Westchester. He conducts workshops for incarcerated youth, working with various ATI programs in the Bronx and Westchester. Ibrahim recently founded Earth’s Pantry, a line of skin and hair care products made from organic plant-based ingredients. The proceeds of this company go towards funding his art program and hopes to build the company in order to expand his arts program, as well as sponsor similar programs around the world. He sees himself as a light for today’s youth to realize their potential.
Community Organizer, Writer, Artist & Activist. Jabin Ahmed is a community organizer, writer, artist and activist in Hudson, New York. She is a Muslim American woman of Bangladeshi descent who is passionate about creating spaces and communities that support and nourish diverse families and youth. She leads interfaith gatherings, speaks and educates the community on Islamophobia, racism and women's rights. Her work aims to create spaces for Muslim women to take on leadership roles in faith/community spaces and advocates for women to take charge of the issues that matter to them. She co-founded Hudson Muslim Youth, a project aimed at empowering young Muslims living in Hudson. Through the Raising Places project, she and 10 other community leaders focused on building family and child-friendly communities. Jabin is a strong supporter and ally of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement. She also participated in a 2-year long project that resulted in the development of a mobile grocery truck that provides fresh organic locally produced foods to underserved communities. She serves on the board for Long Table Harvest, Hudson Area Library, and was a major supporter of WiseBodies a sexual empowerment and educational program aimed to heal, teach and nourish the sexual identities of young people and adults.
Founder and Community Organizer. Tonia Conner-Mitchell is the founder of 100Sistas based in Westchester NY. Tonia began her community organizing work in July 2016 in order to bring attention to police brutality and the lack of access and resources for Black, LGBTQI, and house less communities in Westchester NY.
Before 2016 Tonia Conner-Mitchell spoke out against shackling in jail and prison of pregnant mothers during child birth In New York state. Eliminating shackling of mothers during childbirth while incarcerated remains an issue for 100Sistas.
100Sistas feeds the house less in Yonkers every weekend, and Tonia diligently works to ensure that the house less in Westchester have access to food and shelter. Under 100Sistas, Tonia created a mentorship program for Black girls in the Yonkers community known as 100Gurlz. 100Gurlz reaches black girls within the Yonkers community. A mentoring, engagement and learning program, created to provide black girls a vision to create their own definition of what it means to be Young, Black and Female.
In 2018 Tonia Mitchell-Conner in collaboration with Hudson Valley Black Lives Matter organized Black Women’s March Continuing the Legacy of Harriet Tubman on April 7th, 2018. This was the largest march outside of NYC, since the Tawana Brawley case in 1987, with demands and issues focusing on racial disparities in the Hudson Valley impacting Black women.
Activist and Youth Community Organizer. Zeltzyn Sanchez Gomez is a 21 year-old Mexican New Yorker and DACA-mented activist who has resided in Port Chester, NY for the past 14 years. Zeltzyn has worked on a variety of issues ranging from responsible development, affordable housing, the adverse effects of the war on drugs, and voter and immigrant rights. Whether as a speaker, panelist, volunteer, translator, or advocate, she wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the support of her friends, family, and community. Zeltzyn is currently a board member of Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, co-chair of the 2020 Census Complete Count Committee -Port Chester, and a first generation student at Westchester Community College. She also works in conjunction with a variety of organizations throughout Westchester, including StartSmartNY, Clay Art Center, PC/Rye NAACP, Wespac, and the Westchester Social Justice Community.
Parent Coordinator and Leader. As a native of Chile, Marcela witnessed cruel oppression under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. For the past 20 years, she has lived in the US. During this time she has been a community leader and organizer in the Hispanic immigrant community in Ossining. Marcela has been consistently engaged on behalf of poor and undocumented immigrants: supporting children’s education; a pathway to immigration reform; affordable housing; access to higher education; equal rights between men and women; LGBT rights, and rights for persons with disabilities. Marcela has been a parent coordinator in the Ossining school district for nearly ten years. She is the voice of the Hispanic Parents Association in her school district and fervently works in support of immigrant parents in their efforts to navigate the school system. She has been involved with Envisioning Westchester in their struggle to bring change and social justice to Westchester County. At her local church, she runs informative meetings in support of Hispanic children’s religious education.
Economic Development Strategist and Community Organizer. LaMont is a professional community organizer, community economic development strategist, and a lifelong South Yonkers resident. In 2006, LaMont launched a youth program out of the recreation room of his building - teaching history and community responsibility to high-risk youth from his neighborhood. As a student at Lehman College, LaMont was the founder and president of the Black Student Union and a Student Senator. He led the initiative to create Lehman’s new minor in Urban Community Development - the first student-initiated academic program at Lehman college in over 30 years. The minor was designed to give students, regardless of their major, the tools necessary to use their career skills towards the development of their neighborhoods. LaMont went on to become an organizer for Picture The Homeless (a housing policy organization in the Bronx) before deciding to dedicate his energy and passion for community development to his native community, South Yonkers.
Artist, Social Justice Leader and Founder. Cornell “Lord Judah” Carelock is the one-and-only professional Hip-hop teaching artist in Westchester New York. He has been working with the Westchester Martin Luther King Jr. Institute for Non-Violence since 2006, building bridges between youth, adults, and law enforcement. In 2017, he founded True He(ART) Academy, specially designed for artists, teachers, law enforcement and other community members to teach self-healing and resilience strategies using the arts as a catalyst. Lord Judah is on a mission to share heart with the world by engaging in creative humanitarian projects and collaborations. He credits his course training with Mindful Schools with enabling him to present his workshops in a more coherent teaching style. Besides working with innumerable arts agencies across Westchester, Lord Judah also directs a group called Highly Intelligent People Healing Our Planet, providing social justice presentations to youth and underserved communities.
Activist, Community Organizer and Assistant Director. Tarin is an Activist and Community Organizer. Her parents fled oppression in Chile under the Pinochet regime and came to the Bronx where Tarin grew up in the 80s and 90s, exposing her to the conditions and experiences that have informed her unique perspective on grassroots organizing. In high school, she struggled until she met a teacher who mentored her regarding her own culture and taught her to understand society through a systemic lens. Tarin became radicalized. A few years ago, Tarin moved to Westchester County and worked as the Community and Family Services Coordinator, as well as the Community Organizer and Facilitator of a Food Justice Committee. She currently serves as Assistant Director of the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action at Manhattanville College, Purchase N.Y. Tarin holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership.
Board President and Program Officer. Originally from Naranjo, Alajuela, Costa Rica, Mayra came to the United States when she was six months old. Her journey through high school and college as an undocumented immigrant laid the groundwork for her commitment to social justice. In 2010, at age 17, she served as a project manager for the Trail of Dreams, a walk for immigrant justice from Miami to the nation’s capital. She coordinated actions and arranged legal representation for four demonstrators walking through the southeastern United States. A former board member and community organizer for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Mayra led efforts on the We Are Florida! and ¡No Somos Rubios! campaigns and traveled to Alabama to organize against anti-immigrant legislation. Most recently, Mayra served as the executive director of the Hudson Valley Community Coalition, a grassroots group organizing for immigrant rights. She currently serves as the board president for United We Dream Action. In 2017 Mayra was hired by North Star Fund to be their Hudson Valley Program Director. Mayra leads North Star Fund’s grantmaking and donor organizing in the Hudson Valley.
