Eva Agudelo is the founder of Hope’s Harvest RI. Since 2008, she has worked with beginning farmers, restaurants, retailers, farmers markets, non-profits, and hunger relief agencies, to improve community food security and bring about a food system that works for everyone. Eva started the National Incubator Farm Training Initiative through the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, served as a FINI program officer at Wholesome Wave supporting incentive programs at farmers markets across the U.S., and most recently, was the Assistant Director of Programs at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, administering federal nutrition programs and supporting Rhode Island’s statewide network of food pantries and meal sites. She holds an M.S. from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and is a member of the Rhode Island Food Policy Council (RIFPC).

Jamie Christian is the Executive Director and founder of Lettuce Turnip the Beet Sustainability Collective©(2020) and co-founder and Executive Director of its predecessor Lettuce Turnip the Beet CSGA©(2015). LTBCSGA began as a school garden initiative and has bloomed into an organization that provides sustainability and regenerative agriculture education to schools and communities in South Western PA. Jamie teaches “attainable sustainability and agriculture” methods that illustrate how to use easily obtainable materials to build, cultivate, and sustain a beautiful life. She is a lifetime lover of food, agriculture, and the environment. In 2017 Ms. Christian moved on from a 15 year career in finance to the fulltime operation of LTBCSGA . She has continued her education through certification programs include Master Naturalist, Master Gardener, permaculture, mycology, solar and alternative energy, and biomimicry. LTBSC's current programs are Little Sprouts (birth-5yr), Farming Friends (K-8), and Sustainability Sleuths (3-8). BLOOM (Building Lives Outside of Our Military), a therapeutic and vocational transition program, will launch in the spring of 2021 and provide services to military veterans. She is also the co-director and co-creator of The Metavasi Project (a collaboration with The School of Mindful Arts, Pittsburgh PA) , a program that assists at risk middle school students with a successful transition to high school. Jamie is an advocate of education in sustainability, mindfulness, and farm to cafeteria/ farm to school programs for all pre-primary – secondary schools, her future endeavors are focused on changing education policy to support these initiatives. Jamie is a single mother of 2 boys (Christian 11yr and Crosby James 1yr), 2 dogs and a rabbit, she resides in South Park PA. She loves being a mom and teacher, meditation, cooking, gardening, music, dance, reading, the outdoors, and writing curriculum to share with her boys and students.

I’m Kayleigh and I am from the East Coast but living in Alaska. I work in tourism and events and I have a passion for the outdoors and good food. Every day I aim to focus on combining my work and hobbies to create sustainable food systems for everybody while ensuring we all have a good time in the process!

Lucecita Cruz is a Queer Anarchist Latinx farmer, organizer and food justice advocate from the Puerto Rican Diaspora that lives in New York City. They are fighting to protect front line communities who are affected by food injustice and climate change. They have organized with inter-generational BIPOC Queer and Trans folks around gender, race and food. Luz organizes in a way that combines, art, food and activism to better understand our current conditions and develop ways to help fix them. They believe in the liberation of Puerto Rico and of all peoples from their oppressors.

Nessa J. Richman, MPP is the Rhode Island Food Policy Council’s Network Director. She leads the Council in achieving its mission to promote an equitable, economically vibrant, and environmentally sustainable food system in Rhode Island. She works closely with the Council’s 25 volunteer members, state agencies, non-profit leaders, and other core partners to build coalitions that align resources, promote good food and agriculture policy, and execute high-impact projects and programs that fill critical gaps. Prior to joining the Council, Nessa founded and directed, Brightseed Strategies, a consulting firm that worked on national projects related to increasing healthy food access for low-income households, increasing capital access for food systems enterprise and infrastructure, and building institutional markets for locally produced, harvested, and manufactured food.

Onika lives in Brooklyn, New York. A founding member of Black Urban Growers, Onika has had her hands deep in soil for years. She has trained at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is currently the Director of Farm School NYC.

Tarshire Battle is a native of Bostonian, has residing in Pawtucket, RI for 12 years. She is a self- taught artist, using this medium as catalyst for change for subgroups of people in our population such as the homeless, battered women, youths and returning veterans, who have experienced trauma. Over the years, she has collaborated with nonprofit organizations using art social change vehicle to address pressing social such as homelessness, mental health and addiction. She developed an art drop-in center while working at the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, collaborated with Boston’s MFA for guided tours of traumatized female veterans and two annual art shows showing casing talented homeless artist. She currently is employed as a contracted DOC Mental Health Discharge Planner, assisting individuals re- integrate into the community. She is the founder of Roots 2Empower, formerly Restoration Urban Farm of New England, a social enterprise to provide business and agriculture training for formerly incarcerated individuals. She holds a M.P.A from Northeastern University, a M.A. in Mental Health Counseling from Boston University and is an herbalist and Master Gardner.

Thea Upham moved to Providence in 2004 to attend Johnson & Wales University and graduated with a degree in Food Service Entrepreneurship with a concentration in Sociology. She has spent the past 15 years working with food in different capacities — as a chef, farmers market vendor, and farm hand, and now non-profit staff — and has always been mindful of linking her work to the larger local food system. She firmly believes that the decisions we make about what we eat and where it comes from can have great impacts on the health and welfare of our local community. She is currently the Director of Programs & Operations at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, and Vice-Chair of the RI Food Policy Council, where she is able to use her business degree in combination with her experience out in the field to support growers, food producers and community members across Rhode Island.