Community / Youth / Arts Organizing

 

• Organizing/Admin Consultant, Brattleboro Common Sense.
  (Brattleboro, VT) Summer ’18 – Present

– Facilitated writing of the by-laws, strategic plan, and fundraising strategy.
– Established board of directors and facilitated its meetings.
– Secured and stewarded three grants.
– Revised website content and navigation.
– Court briefs, filings, testimony, and strategy, defending a shelter project.
– Supported youth leadership in a campaign to grant 16/17-year old residents the rights to vote in local elections, run for and serve on school boards, and serve as town representatives.
– Other Projects: Floodplains justice; Wealth taxes; Police disarmament.

• Coordinator, Youth4Change, The Root Social Justice Center.
  (Brattleboro, VT) Summer ’16 – Fall ’20

Co-created and -coordinated a program of 10-15 youth focused on racial healing and social justice.

– Program structure, planning, facilitation, budgeting, and logistics.
– Tracked participation and leadership development.
– Internal discussion, art and activities; Local campaigns, forums and events; Participation in state and regional racial and youth justice organizing networks and conferences.
– School campaigns: Team name; Removal of police officers; BLM flag.

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Volunteer Organizing in Vermont:

 

• Faerie Camp Destiny. (Chester, VT) Spring ’21 – Summer ’25

Rural refuge, gathering site, and community project for LGBTQ2I adults.

– Co-coordinator of governance system and its business meetings.
– Part of the body gatekeeping visits and seasonal residency.
– Steward of equity and access proposals and practices.
– Coordinated two primary gatherings; base support for all gatherings.

• Outright Vermont. (Statewide) Fall ’15 – Summer ’22

Cultural and organizing group for queer and transgender youth ages 13-22.

– Facilitator of monthly Friday Night Group meeting (2016-2022).
– Support staff and theatre workshop facilitator at Camp Outright (2017).
– Helper at Queer Youth Summit (2018) and QSA Conference (2019).

• Justicia Migrante, No Más Polimigra Campaign.
  (Windham County, VT) Fall ’20 – Spring ’22

  County chapter of statewide campaign to restrict local police interaction with federal immigration authorities.

  – Co-organized and facilitated community forums and events.
  – Co-organized successful ballot measures in three towns.
  – Wrote information and opinion pieces for the campaign website and press.

   

• Vermont Workers Center. (Windham County, VT) Summer ’16 – Fall ’20

County chapter of membership organization for healthcare justice organizing.

– Outreach, basebuilding, planning/facilitating meetings and events.
– Co-designed and facilitated two regional forums.
– Media coordination for statewide actions.

 

• 350 Brattleboro. (Brattleboro, VT) Fall ’16 – Spring ’17

Helped pull together the local chapter of 350VT, a chapter of the environmental group 350.org.

– Supported the initial outreach, organizing meetings and campaigns.
– Organized the opening forum, with national, state and local campaigns. Topics included Standing Rock reports and calls for action, the upcoming People’s Climate March in D.C., instituting a State Bank to divest from pipeline profiteers, and a local plastic bag ban.

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• Visiting Teacher, Birchwood Middle School.
  (North Providence, RI) Fall ’11 – Spring ’14

First Year (2011 – 2012)
– Led students in dramatizing an essay on bullying & cycles of power.
– Co-coordinated a multi-performance anti-bullying program for the public.

Second Year (2013 – 2014)
– Ten-hour training in Playback Theatre for twenty students.
– Weekly workshop on personal stories of bullying.
– Weekly workshop on personal stories of racism.
– Coordination of a student play on bullying and conflict resolution.

 

• Playback Rhode Island Theater Troupe – Select Projects.
  (Statewide/Regional) Spring ’07 – Fall ’13

  Playback Theatre reflects audience stories in engaging, revealing forms.

  – Workshops with children of grieving families at Friends Way in Warwick, RI.
  – Performance exploring anger management with students at PACE Academy.
  – Performance/workshop on bullying, sexism & racism with middle students.
  – Performance on bullying with a YMCA Youth Leadership Program.
  – Performances for elderly residents in public housing and day-centers.
  – Role-playing with nursing and graduate social work students at RI College.

   

• Cure CVS Now Campaign.
  (Providence and Woonsocket, RI) Winter ’09

  – Strategic props addressing overcharging and expired goods.
  – With the Straight Up youth group: props addressing low-income youth’s access to prophylactics.

   

• Art and Revolution – Select Projects.
  (San Francisco, CA) Spring ’99 – Summer ’05

– Dia De Los Muertos procession and ritual – collaboration of three youth gang-prevention programs.
– Mission District youth workshops for Chicano Moratorium and Chasky celebrations (’99 – ’02).
– October 22^nd Coalition Against Gun Violence – workshops with youth and community groups.
– MOVE anti-violence youth program – Theater Of The Oppressed workshop on gender & power.
– Strategic props creation w/ Communities for a Better Environment’s Young Women’s Leadership Project.
– Environmental Justice visual project targeting an oil refinery, demanding a multilingual warning system.
– Street performance projects to publicize housing displacement issues.

 

• Organizing Consultant, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center.
  (San Francisco, CA) Spring – Fall ’01

– Fulfilled all functions of BHNC’s Director of Community Organizing position.
– Created database to track participation and leadership development.
– Organized residents and businesses against a Home Depot development.
– Supported campaigns on youth/police relations & education.
– Coordinated all outreach, planning, issue workshops and logistics for BHNC’s annual membership Congress. Organized seven issues into strategy groups and target demands.

 

• Interim Executive Director, Political Ecology Group.
  (San Francisco, CA)  Fall ’00 – Spring ‘01

– Reorganized PEG’s administrative and campaign agendas.
– Reorganized the grant-tracking system. Wrote/stewarded two grants.
– Created a project linking several city anti-displacement organizing efforts.
– Directed an organizing project around small-nonprofit displacement.
– Coordinated a nonprofit co-location project with the Columbia Foundation.

 

• Program Director, S.F. Neighborhood Safety Partnership.
  (San Francisco, CA) Fall ’98 – Fall ‘00

– All program design, implementation, budgeting, and fundraising for a 10-agency collaboration in violence prevention and conflict resolution.
– Served as supervisor and capacity-builder for 12 district organizers.
– Created strategy teams of organizers and agencies.
– Revised outcome-tracking system to accommodate multiple funding streams and organizing priorities.
– Led a full-staff/agencies development project on the impacts of bias and racism in community based organizations and among peers.

Youth Projects at SFNSP
– School-based conflict resolution projects citywide.
– Young women’s health project in the Western Addition district.
– Queer youth homeless shelter organizing in the Castro district.
– Youth/community conflict resolution in the Mission district.
– Gang/crew peace and youth/police relations in the Tenderloin and Chinatown districts.

 

• Neighborhood Director/Community Organizer
  Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.
  (New York City). Spring ’96 – Fall ‘98

Served as program and organizing director the Kingsbridge Heights neighborhood office.
– Organized housing justice campaigns in large residential buildings.
– Organized campaigns against crowded and toxic elementary schools.
– Integrated neighborhood leadership into coalition-wide organizing.
– Formed a coalition of neighborhood leaders and upstate environmentalists to address watershed development, in a campaign against a filtration project.
– Participated in national coalition organizing and actions.

Youth Work at NWBCCC
– Created and oversaw a program for 100+ youth aged 14-21.
– Organized youth around local development, parks and housing issues.
– Taught a 25-session community organizing workshop for HS students.
– Earth Day issue/art workshops at the Bronx High School of Science.
– Youth-led strategic theater creation with NW Bronx Education Committee.
– Youth-led strategic theater creation with NW Bronx Banking Committee.
– Graffiti-tag art project in collaboration with artists, landlords and businesses.

 

• People’s Art Project. (Edinburgh, Scotland) Fall ’94 – Fall ’95
  – Community workshops in storytelling and ritual expression.
  – Venues: community galleries, after-school CRECHEs, festivals, parades, ethnic celebrations.

   

• Community Organizer, Massachusetts ACORN. (Boston, MA) Winter – Fall ‘93

– Campaign and leadership development in the Grove Hall neighborhood.
– Initiatives in dump-lots cleanup and community policing corridors.
– Led a research project on racial bias in housing insurance practice.
– Participated in national training, organizing and strategy.

 

• Organizing Intern, Coalition for Community Control of Development.
  (Boston, MA) Summer ‘91

State of the Neighborhoods Convention 1991:
– Coordinated a needs/resource survey of (approx. 500) participating groups.
– Organized participants into issue groups and workshop teams.
– Tracked registration, participation and feedback.
– Arranged all convention logistics.

 

• College Of The Atlantic Theater/Improv Troupe.
  (Bar Harbor, ME) Fall ’89 – Spring ’91

  – Columbus Day 500: Large-scale puppet theater on patterns of colonization.
  – Sexual Assault Awareness Week: Invisible Theater hits throughout campus.

Education

 

• Masters of Science in Human Ecology
  University of Edinburgh (Scotland) Fall ’94 – Fall ’95

– Seminar and field studies in approaches to political, environmental and social problem solving.
– Coursework themes: Direct democracy in resource management; community implementation of treaties and conventions; complex environmental legacies of failed regimes; and power/abuse analyses.
– Thesis work: Postmodern sociology and artistic manifestation of identity.

• Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology
  College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor, Maine) Fall ’87 – Spring ’92

– Studies linking social, political, economic, and environmental factors in assessing ecological issues.
– Concentrations: political economy, constitutional theory, philosophy, theater.
– Chair of Coordinating Committee 2y; Moderator of All College Meeting 1y.
– Senior project: Essay and original play about political and social change in the United States from 1866-1932.