Board of Directors

Haleh Zandi

President of the Board of Directors

Haleh Zandi is a co-founder and the Educational Director of Planting Justice. Her approach towards the food justice movement particularly draws connections between the United States dependence upon fossil fuels within the industrialized and globalized food system and the unjust militarization of the Middle East and South Asia. She believes the modern colonial food system is in a paradigm of war, and she is dedicated to the ways in which diverse communities may build alliances and practice strategies that collectively resist the violence of the industrial food system and structurally shift the United States towards more ecologically sustainable and socially just methods for growing and sharing our food.

She has taught over 200 workshops in our community gardens using Planting Justice's self-designed curriculum in food justice, culinary arts, and permaculture design. Haleh received her MA in Postcolonial Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Haleh is the proud mama of baby Azadeh.

Any inquiries, please contact haleh [at] plantingjustice [dot] org

Gavin Raders

Secretary and Treasurer of the Board of Directors

Gavin Raders is a co-founder and 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 us more resilient, but also makes us less likely to violently take what they need from someone else. 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:

Leah Abraham

Leah is very proud to be on the board of Planting Justice. She was born and raised in the Bay Area. Spending most of her life in Oakland, she is excited to see an organization like Planting Justice revitalizing our shared spaces and reimagining the way we grow and eat food. She believes there are many ways to fight for justice, planting food being one of them. She will be attending University of California, Hastings College of the Law in the fall and she hopes to use the law to fight for a more just and transparent criminal justice system.

Andrew Chahrour

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.

Ashley Philpot

Ashley Philpot grew up in Ohio, and has dedicated her life to social and environmental justice. She has a Masters degree in Postcolonial Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Miami University of Ohio. After completing her Bachelors, she worked in Atlanta and San Francisco as a Canvass Director, mobilizing hundreds to stop oil drilling on our coasts, build support for sustainable energy systems, and advocate for LGBTQ rights. Ashley is currently in her first year of Doctoral work in Postcolonial Anthropology. Her research and advocacy is interested in addressing the structures of violence produced through capitalist exploitation and U.S. militarization in Iraq, and their effects upon gender and sexual minorities in the Middle East.

Orion Trist

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.

NeEddra James

needdra [dot] james [at] gmail [dot] com (NeEddra James) is a writer and graphic designer based in Oakland, California who provides integrated communications consulting services to small businesses and nonprofits in the Bay Area.

Through her work with Planting Justice and on the Board of the Common Fire Foundation, NeEddra helps develop ecologically regenerative and economically cooperative communities that are committed to personal transformation and social justice. She also maintains a blog called PARAME CultureWorks! that explores contemporary politics and culture from the perspective of spiritual activism. She holds a Master’s Degree in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Bowdoin, College in Brunswick, Maine.

Leah Atwood

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.

Ambrose Desmond

T. Ambrose Desmond is the Director of the East Bay Agency for Children's Early Childhood Intensive Mental Health Day-Treatment Center. He is also a psychotherapist in private practice. Ambrose began studying Permaculture while he was a visiting student at the Institute for Gandhian Studies in Wardha, India in 2000. He co-founded the Green Bloc in 2003, teaching Permaculture and community-building skills at large demonstrations around the US and Mexico. He believes, as Gandhi taught, that the creation of local economies in which people can have their basic needs met is the most powerful tool for social change. It is for this reason that he is so enthusiastic about the mission of Planting Justice.

Josh Sbicca

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 Nguyen

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.

Patrick O'Connor

Patrick O'Connor began his participation in permaculture through the Sonoran Permaculture Guild. He has spent a good bit of time in agricultural training service through groups like the Green Corn Project, World Hunger Relief, and City Slicker Farms. He's worked as a construction worker, a farmhand, and currently works as a gardener in the greater East Bay. He's a member of the California Rare Fruit Growers, International Plant Propagators Society, and the Home Orchard Society. His interests lie in dialectics, agroecology, and scale-free self-sufficiency. Patrick's a transplant to Oakland who originally hails from the sunny borderland city of Tucson, Arizona, where his formative years were spent with pellet rifle in hand roaming arroyos between ranch land and ever-encroaching suburbs.

Marta Tesfamariam

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.

Marcelo Felipe Garzo Montalvo

Marcelo is a first-generation Chilean-American musician, activist, and educator. He received both his B.A. and M.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley, after transferring from the California Community College system. His research, activism and art focuses on food justice/food sovereignty, healing justice and theories and praxes of decolonization and spiritual activism. He is also a proud member of the Oakland-based, queer/trans people of color healing justice collective known as the Bad Ass Visionary Healers, aka the Babes. He also plays electric guitar and yells with xican@/latin@ punk band, nepantler@s.

Cindy Nguyen

Cindy Nguyen has been living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 10 years. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Social Work at the University of California, Berkeley and interns at Foster Youth Services as an Educational Liaison though the County of San Mateo. She loves to go sailing and her current favorite tree is the cypress.

Erica Meta Smith

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

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.

Julio Madrigal

Bio coming soon!

Salvador Mateo

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.

Jonah Sheridan

Jonah Silas Sheridan is an independent technology consultant to non-profits and activists providing services as a trainer, strategic planner and infrastructure builder. His consultancy is affiliated with the the Tech Underground Collective, a group of progressive technologists providing low cost services to Bay Area non-profits. Jonah is also a certified Permaculture designer and active urban homesteader in the East Bay. He derives great joy from backcountry camping, composting and fermenting whatever he can. He believes that engaging humans in the generation of their own food supply will change the world.

Jeffrey Rutland

Jeffrey Rutland, born and raised in Richmond, CA, currently is an organizer with the Safe Return project CCISCO in Richmond. He is also a Project Manager for the Edible Forest with Urban Tilth. Previously, Jeff had been a Permaculture Landscaper with the Planting Justice Transform your Yard team after he had graduated from the Insight Garden Program.

Katrina Zavalney

Katrina is a change agent with a Masters in Organization Development from Sonoma State University and fifteen-years of experience in community development, facilitation, and sustainable event management. Currently she is the program manager for ACTION: A Creative Transformation In Our Neighborhoods with the Numi Foundation.

In 1999, Katrina fell in love with localization while working with City Repair Project in Portland, OR. While working with this renowned re-localization nonprofit, she collaborated with many community and governmental agencies to increase community benefit programs. In 2007, Katrina served as Co-Chair of the Built Environment committee with the HOPE Collaborative in Oakland, CA. Before coming to the Numi Foundation, Katrina worked at the Walt Disney Company to help develop their environmental policies company wide, including the most recent Paper Policy. Katrina has been a permaculturist for many years and loves stacking functions and beatifying spaces with a practical, edible touch - and loves learning about the incredible healing power of plants studying herbalism whenever she gets a chance to dive in.

(website: www.KatrinaZavalney.com)

Alexis Stavropoulos

Alexis Stavropoulos received her M.A. in Geography at California State University, Fullerton. Her research focused on local food production, famers' markets, and homegardens in Irvine, CA. During this time she worked at Orange County Produce, which led her through a world of conventional and organic agriculture. Her experience introduced her to the wasteful system of large-scale industrial agriculture. This inspired her to receive a permaculture design certificate from the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. Her support for food justice comes from years of watching people give their lives to fields of strawberries, moving from county to county following the harvesting schedules of the central valley, and being underpaid and under respected. Her central mantra is let food be your medicine. Her life pleasures include yoga, photography, running in the rain, and travel.

Paul Sheldon

Paul Sheldon serves on the Planting Justice board of directors, in part because of his extensive connections within the “Sustainable Corrections” movement, nationally and internationally. An internationally-recognized authority on sustainable food planning, natural capitalism, and local community organizing, Paul is well-known in the fields of "greening corrections"; neighborhood planning; energy, water, and resource efficiency planning; sustainability; fund raising; and board development. Through his articles, publications, and conference presentations, Paul has existing connections with correctional institutions and associations, as well as community-based support organizations in communities in Oakland, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Boulder, Denver, Indianapolis, Orlando, Lancaster (Ohio), New Mexico, New York, Kentucky, Texas, Kabul, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, and beyond. His work on energy efficiency in Alaska, economic and energy alternatives to coal plants on the Navajo Nation, and his background working on sustainable agriculture, energy, and water systems at Natural Capitalism Solutions (with his older sister, Hunter Lovins) prepared him well to support the work of Planting Justice. Paul's recent Greening Corrections Technologies Guidebook, published by the National Institute of Justice, included Planting Justice as an example of successful, self-funding re-entry programs for formerly-incarcerated people. Through his participation in such organizations as the American Correctional Association, the North American Association of Wardens and Superintendents, and the American Jails Association, as well as his extensive background with neighborhood development programs such as the Los Angeles-based TreePeople, and Boulder, CO's community energy planning process, Paul complements PJ’s existing fund raising, board development, and outreach to community-based organizations and leaders in providing resources and planning for continuing success as well as replication of PJs ‘s programs and activities in other regions. Paul also serves as Business Director for Vital Systems (www.VitalSystemsCA.com), a Berkeley-based educational consultancy, dedicated to creating a more equitable democracy through demonstrating the community benefits of local, healthy food infrastructure.

Alex Madsen

Alex currently serves as Admissions Manager for Citizen Schools, a national education reform non-profit. At Citizen Schools she works to expand the learning day, promote student achievement and re-imagine education in the United States. After receiving her BA in East Asian Religion from Bucknell University, Alex spent over two years as an early childhood educator with Teach for America in an undeserved community of San Francisco. After teaching, Alex moved to Colorado where she received an MA in International Human Rights from the University of Denver. In Denver, she worked with the Human Trafficking Clinic as well as with the Morgridge College of Education on the development of a comprehensive human rights and human trafficking curriculum (K-12th grade) and supplementary teachers’ compendium. She also spent time working with Denver non-profits as a consultant in non-profit administration, program development and financial management. Alex has worked with local Bay Area non-profits such as SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) and Deer Hill Ranch on creating educational resources, tool-kits and models that work to go beyond traditional academics. In her free time Alex loves to run, bake, read and sit in the sun. She is thrilled to be a part of a dedicated team of individuals who are passionate and determined to transform the food, education and justice systems in this nation.

Or Rabinowiz

Following his love for the natural world, Or received his Bachelor's degree in Biology from UC Santa Cruz. His main passions include environmental, social, and personal sustainability. He puts his passions into action through his work with Planting Justice and Be Present, two incredible non-profits. Since the start of 2012, he has been working as a Permaculture Designer/Team Leader for Planting Justice. He co-facilitates workshops in the Be Present Empowerment Model, a tool for dialogue, developing effective relationships, and addressing the impact of race, gender, class, power, and other divides, on our personal and collective well being. His passion for social sustainability has led him to explore different forms of intentional community and cooperative living. He currently lives in a coop house that he helped found and where he enjoys coming home to good food, music, games, and a group of friends who are committed to working through some of the tougher issues that come up when living communally.

Pandora Thomas

Pandora Thomas is a passionate global citizen who works as an environmental educator, permaculture teacher and curriculum developer. She is a certified green building consultant, credential multiple subjects’ teacher and studied at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs, Teachers College, and Tufts University.

Her writing includes a children’s book, various curricula and a greenbuilding manual for youth. She lectures on intersection of diversity, social justice, women's leadership, and sustainability.

Pandora co-founded Earthseed Consulting LLC, a holistic consulting firm whose work expands the opportunities for sustainable living for diverse communities. Her clients include Toyota and UC Berkeley.

She has worked with groups as diverse as Iraqi and Indonesian youth to men serving in San Quentin creating inspiring and hands on programs around biomimicry, sustainability, and outdoor and environmental education.

She has studied four languages and lived and worked in over twelve countries and her other achievements include presenting at Tedx Denver and SF, and being awarded fellowships to Columbia University, Green For All and the Applied Research Center.

Sylvia Wu

Bio and pic coming soon!

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