Board

Leigh Robbie Gaymon-Jones (she/her/hers) is an artist and facilitator committed to cultivating inspired relationships with the earth and between people.

Currently at Solidaire Network, Leigh works with social movements to foster long-term building of liberatory futures. Leigh’s work is informed by over a decade of experience connecting communities to land, food and sustainable life practices.  Her work at the intersection of food, education and identity for years, began in her hometown of Austin, Texas, where she led youth and community farm programming at Urban Roots. She has since managed Alemany Farm, a San-Francisco community project, directed the education team at CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), supported the launch of the Castanea Fellowship, for leaders in food equity, and guided the strategic redesign of UC Santa Cruz’s historic Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture. Leigh has also served as a program development consultant and facilitator with various food, arts and philanthropic organizations. Leigh is inspired by human connection and human capacity. She continues to vision and create projects at the crossroads of land, creativity, and wholeheartedness. During the Shelter in Place orders, Leigh has relished the time to spend at home in Santa Cruz, snuggled up with her partner and newly adopted pup—Willow Wind!  

 leighgaymonjones.com

(formerly with Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) University of California, Santa Cruz, now on CWC’s board and with Solidaire Network)

Patrick Brown (he/they) is a strategist, advocate, coach, and facilitator focused on organizational transformation.

Through a national network of partnerships, he has created a body of work that includes executive coaching, transformative leadership development, systems change strategy mapping, and more. Patrick’s approach is full-hearted and joyful rooted in healing through rigorous individual work. As a queer Black man moving through the world he often draws from his own experiences influenced by teachings of the Buddha and Dharma, Black Feminist Theory, Somatic experience, and ancient wisdom philosophies.

Patrick was born into a lineage of union and faith-based organizers on the south side of Chicago. His background in workforce development focused on creating opportunities for marginalized communities including women in non-traditional sectors, formerly incarcerated, poor, and communities of color. He left that work for Oakland to better understand the process of transformation. Since arriving in 2011, Patrick has had the fortune to work with powerful partners to create change. They include but are not limited to: the California Congressional Black Caucus, PolicyLink, Museum of African Diaspora, Whole Foods, The United Way Worldwide, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Leadership Learning Community, People’s Institute for Undoing Racism, The Greenlining Institute, East Side Arts Alliance, The California Endowment, Urban Habitat, Othering and Belonging conference and more.

Patrick currently leads work with The Justice Collective that deepens and expands racial equity through leadership and organizational development. With a deep commitment to mindfulness and embodiment practices, he believes we can change the world by transforming ourselves.

With more than 20 years of experience in popular education and transformative facilitation, Rosa (she/her/ella) is dedicated to a thriving culture of participation where communities come together to solve social, environmental, and economic challenges.

Through her project, Facilitating Power, she has partnered with dozens of organizations, agencies, and community leaders to develop participatory approaches to building community resilience and grassroots power. She wrote the Framework on Community-Driven Climate Resilience Planning, and the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, in collaboration with climate justice leaders from around the country, and is working to deepen collaboration between the public and private sectors at the local level through multiple city-based initiatives.  She has designed and directed programs for Movement Strategy Center, The Building Healthy Communities Initiative, The Action Council of Monterey County, The Alliance for Climate Education, Green For All, and the Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action, and spent ten years as a middle school teacher in San José and East Oakland.

Rosa has a gift for accessing the core values at the heart of any effort and weaving shared narratives to advance big vision and concrete practices. She is also a visual and performing artist and student of Vedic wisdom and Maya-Tolteca philosophy, committed to the lessons of our ancestors — to bring balance — with all our relations.

Tannia Esparza (she/her, they/them) is a Queer Xicana raised by Chumash People’s ocean waters now known as Santa Barbara, CA.

She is proud to come from a migrant family of brave, persistent matriarchs and grateful to have found home in the high desert mountains of the Sandia and Tiwa People, now known as Corrales, New Mexico. 

Tannia is a Seed Steward with GiraSol Descendants, a beloved community making project, offering storytelling as a practice for world building. In her consulting roles, she brings her gifts in coaching, storytelling, program design, writing, facilitation, and cultural strategy to local and national justice centered efforts. Tannia loves offering embodied, spirit, and heart centered support as a prenatal, birth, and post-birth doula. 

She has been growing alongside social justice movements for over 17 years, working at the intersections of reproductive, gender and racial justice, and Queer liberation. Most recently, Tannia completed a six-year tenure as Executive Director at Young Women United (now Bold Futures), a New Mexico based reproductive justice organization led by women and people of color. In 2017, she was honored to receive the Woman of Vision Award from the MS. Foundation for Women. Her writing can be found in TheTurnLeft.org, Latina Magazine, Rewire News, NBC News, New Mexico’s Greenfire Times, and the Malpais Review. Tannia enjoys the lessons found in simple everyday life rituals, and is currently doing her best to move all the parts of herself toward her sacred purpose.