Board of Directors

     Gavin Raders is a co-founder and volunteer-executive director of Planting Justice, a social justice activist, and a permacuture demonstrator/teacher. He dedicates his time to practicing permaculture wherever he can, having gone through extensive training with some of the most inspiring and effective permaculture teachers in the world: Geoff Lawton, Penny Livingston-Stark, Brock Dolman, Darren Dougherty, and Nik Bertulis. Before his stint as an intern at the Regenerative Design Institute, he studied cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley, and organized on a range of anti-war, anti-nuclear, environmental and human rights issues both on campus and off. He has knocked on nearly 30,000 doors in California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada as a community organizer with Peace Action West.

     He comes to permaculture and ecological design through a social justice framework which recognizes the right of all people to peace, security, housing, healthy food, clean water, jobs and healthcare, and the rights of future generations to a just and livable world. For this to happen, he believes that Americans need to understand and respect the intimate connection and the shared fate we have with all people and all life on this planet, and organize effectively on the local level to come up with replicable and effective solutions to the range of hardships and oppressions we currently face. When families, communities, bio-regions, and nations work with nature instead of against her to provide their own sustainable food, water, and energy, this not only makes them more resilient, but also makes them less likely to try to violently take what they need from another. He is still riding on the inspiration and jolt of passion he experienced in India, studying and advocating for the right to water and against its privatization by massive water corporations (such as Coca-Cola). You can read the paper he published on the subject here:

Andrew grew up in Ohio and got his BA in Environmental Studies from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, he was exposed to a variety of Midwestern agricultural systems, both conventional and organic. Andrew's degree in Environmental Studies led him to a job with the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming where he worked to produce digital maps of aspen stands, whose recession across the Western US has been poorly understood. After the completion of this assignment, Andrew moved to Boston where he co-founded ConsumerConscience, a wiki-based website devoted to ethical consumerism. Soon thereafter, Andrew moved to the Bay Area and began working with the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture as a volunteer. Andrew built the new Planting Justice website and he continues to bring technology solutions to Planting Justice that increase our capacity to do our work. In his free time, Andrew builds websites for other non-profits, plays ultimate frisbee, climbs rocks, and chases after his dog.

A born organizer and life long activist, Orion has led peace projects and marches in Marin County, where he lived for four years before moving to San Francisco in the beginning of 2009. He loves to gather community into creative spaces and mobilize them to work for positive cultural change. He is a proponent of alternative energies, with in depth knowledge of cradle to grave sustainable analysis, as well as running his own car on waste vegetable oil. Having studied Urban Permaculture while growing up in Eugene Oregon, he is an advocate for Bioregionalism; sustainability based on stewardship and utilization of local resources. Orion currently works with the Global Fund for Women, supporting their amazing on the ground funding efforts by keeping their technical systems operational.

Leah currently serves as program manager for Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture (MESA), a non-profit organization facilitating an international farmer-to-farmer exchange program on behalf of sustainable agriculture. Leah grew up on a family-scale non-production farm in the redwood forests of Arcata, Ca. and has lived in the Bay Area for the last 10 years where she moved to pursue a degree in Environmental Policy and Spanish at UC Berkeley. She has spent much time abroad in South and Central America as well as in Bangladesh working on behalf of social, environmental and food justice initiatives. As a result of her travel and work experiences she gained insight into international agriculture systems and the value of socio-ecologically mindful practices and unconventional multi-stakeholder collaboration. Leah’s past non-profit experience includes working in program development for the International Institute for Bengal Basin to address water rights and pollution mitigation in Bangladesh, India and Nepal and with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant where she worked in translation and fundraising on behalf of indigent refugees seeking legal guidance. Her latest project is launching Ag-vocate.org- a web portal to promote civic philanthropy in the direction of local small-scale agriculture. In her surplus time she teaches yoga to at-risk teens with the Art of Yoga Project and is trained in facilitation and conflict mediation.

Josh Sbicca has been working as an activist and a scholar since 2001. He graduated from Santa Clara University with a BS in Sociology and Political Science, but during those years and the two years after graduation he worked on everything from anti-war and labor struggles, to environmental issues. He is currently working as a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Florida. As a participatory researcher, he gradually has been learning from communities in both Florida and California how they are pro-actively creating sustainable urban environments that directly challenge status quo models of social organization, economics and urban planning. He believes that communities have a right to self determination regarding decisions that directly impact their ability to live in an increasingly polluted and unhealthy world. The political framing of food justice by those in the alternative food and farming movement carves out rhetorical and lived spaces for communities and organizations to build alliances across ideological, racial and economic boundaries. Therefore, it is Josh's hope that by balancing both academics and activism, he can more fully actualize the vision he has for this world - a vision that at core is prioritizing solidarity, justice, diversity, and sustainability.

May began her food justice work during her days on the campus of UC Berkeley with the student-run organization Society for Agriculture & Food Ecology (SAFE). With her trusty team of student activists, she helped plan DIY workshops, published a zine of student-authored articles called "Lettuce Turnip the Beets", and organized town hall-style food & farming lectures. She has extended this work beyond the campus: helping to promote "The Greenhorns," a New York-based non-profit in the midst of producing a documentary film about young farmers in America, WWOOF'ing in Thailand and France, and studying the formation of intentional permaculture communities. She is constantly inspired by the love and dedication of urban farmers and community organizers across the country, and is stoked to be able to contribute to the continued transformation of Oakland communities in her work landscaping with Planting Justice. She adores wooden homes, sourdough, and cruising down hills on her track bike.

Marta Tesfamariam has been living and working in the Bay Area since 2008. Marta has been apart of social service organizations such as Seneca Center for the past two years and continues her work with Bay Area youth through Planting Justice. Marta’s passion lies in educating youth about the systemic functions of society that create social and economic disenfranchisement through such lens as food justice and mental health. Marta is planning to begin her graduate studies in Social Work at Smith College in the Summer of 2011. Her long term plan is to continue her clinical career working with groups such as Planting Justice, integrating mental health, food justice, and youth empowerment.

Philemon Abraham was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley.  As a social justice activist, he got his start in the peace movement, helping to mobilize the public to hold elected officials accountable.  Phil sees independent sustainable communities as a means to fight poverty and oppression.  By creating new, localized systems of subsistence and trade, not only are new jobs created, but new economies.  Phil is currently working with Center for Progressive Action, a grassroots network of political activists in the Bay Area.

Erica Meta Smith is a native to rural Northern California, and is dedicated to sustainable systems of design. She works in Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) carbon development - linking communities to carbon markets through carbon off-set creation. She received her undergraduate degree in Forestry and her Masters of Forestry from the University of Caliornia, Berkeley.  Erica's respect for living systems is based upon her family's practice in Forestry and their dependence upon natural resources as their income. She believes global climate change affects all parts of society and she is committed to helping communities through the creation of alternative livelihoods.

Lora Jo Foo is an attorney, organizer, author, nature photographer, and aspiring organic farmer.  She was an organizer in the garment and hotel unions and spent 9 years at the Asian Law Caucus representing workers in sweatshop industries.  She stopped litigating in 2000 and returned to organizing.  She has been the Organizing Director for the California Faculty Association, the union that represents the CSU faculty, and in 2004 and 2008 was the National Coordinator for the AFL-CIO’s voting rights protection program, launching coalitions in the battleground states to prevent disenfranchisement and protect the vote of people of color communities.  She has been a life-long advocate for women’s, labor, civil, and immigrant rights and knowing the impact of climate change on these communities, has also become an environmental justice advocate.  She joins the board of Planting Justice to contribute her skills to furthering the goals of the food justice movement.

Throughout his high school career, Salvador took it upon himself to take advantage of everything that was offered to him.  He spent most of his 4 years in high school learning about his community, the people in it and how he can help them.  He always thought it was impossible, until his sophomore year when he spent the summer at UC Berkeley attending the summer legal fellowship program where he learned about the different types of laws that exist and how we can use them in the right situation.  He was an intern for Mayor Quan when she was still a Councilmember.  He graduated from the program and received a certificate from Barbara Lee and a check for $1,400.00 for the summer.  He didn’t stop there; his junior year, he spent in a program called Youth and Government where he was given the role of lead defense attorney for a mock trial that was held in the capital of CA. This went for over 6 months, and he did it during school as an internship.  As soon as the summer came around Salvador wanted to learn how to put all of these new skills and knowledge into effect in his community, so he was an intern for the Rose Foundation.  During his time there, he was given an externship with The Center for Environmental Health (C.E.H).  As he learned about environmental racism and pollution, he was also learning that most of the fake jewelry and clothes sold to teenagers sometimes had high levels of lead and cadmium which were not permitted in the stores.  He was able to go shopping and find a piece of jewelry that had lead in it, and C.E.H. sent a letter saying to take it off the shelves or face the consequences of taking it to court.  He learned a lot that summer; he learned enough to realize that people in his community were living under racism and heavy pollution from the port.   As soon as his senior year came by, he worked the whole year with Planting Justice in Mandela High's school garden that Planting Justice helped build.  During that time, his art teacher Ms. Zimmerman gave him and his friend Julio an opportunity to start a venture.  They decided to attend Ashokas Youth Ventures for about 10 weeks, where they started their venture E.A.T.G.R.U.B. (Enhancing Access To Gardens and Revolutionizing Urban Backyards) and were given $1,000.00 in seed money.  When Salvador graduated high school, Gavin and Haleh, co-founders of Planting Justice gave him the opportunity to work at Planting Justice. He was able to have a job right out of high school and work in his community by empowering people and giving them the chance to grow their own food.