The Circle
Circle of Workers
Rupa Marya
Executive Director/Web Weaver
Dr. Rupa Marya is a physician, activist, writer, mother, and a composer. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition. Her work sits at the nexus of climate, health and racial justice. She is the co-author with Raj Patel of the book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. She works to decolonize food and medicine in partnership with communities in Lakhota territory at the Mni Wiconi Health Circle and in Ohlone Territory through the Deep Medicine Circle. She has toured twenty-nine countries with her band, Rupa and the April Fishes, whose music was described by the legend Gil Scott-Heron as “Liberation Music.”
Charlene Eigen-Vasquez
Director of Landback Program
Charlene Eigen-Vasquez, J.D. is of Ohlone descent, from the village of Chitactac. She is dedicated to land back initiatives, land preservation, land restoration, cultural revitalization and environmental justice because she feels that these initiatives have a direct impact on physical and mental health. As a mother and grandmother, she completed a law degree so that she might better serve Indigenous communities. Today her focus is on regenerative leadership strategies, leveraging her legal skills, and mediation skills to advocate for Indigenous interests, negotiate agreements and build relational bridges. She is an acknowledged peacemaker, trained by Tribal Supreme Court Justices. Charlene is the former CEO and Director of Self-Governance for the Healing and Reconciliation Institute. Charlene also serves as Chairwoman of the Confederation of Ohlone People, Co-Chair of the Pajaro Valley Ohlone Indian Council and Board Vice President for the Santa Clara Valley Indian Health Center. Charlene was recently brought into the Planet Women’s 100 Women Pathway, a cohort designed to increase the number of diverse women leaders at the helm of the environmental movement.
Sage La Pena
Director of Traditional Ecological Knowledge/Indigenous Plant Medicine Doctor
Sage LaPena is a Nomtipom Wintu ethnobotanist and certified medical herbalist. She has worked for years to preserve and pass along Native uses of plant medicines — from both native and introduced plants — and other aspects of Traditional Ecological Knowledge connected to plants.
Lola Isabelle
Office Manager
Lola is of Northern Pomo, Kletsel Dehe Wintu, Hungarian, and Latin descent born and raised in Mendocino County of Northern California. She is a land steward, activist, native dancer, and basket weaver passionate about bioremediation, native plant medicine and an advocate for the development of sustainable food systems and food security.
Benjamin Fahrer
Director of Agroecology/Land Stewardship
Farmer Ben brings a breadth of knowledge and experience to his roles in the DMC. A jack of many trades, Ben is a professional trained builder, farmer, licensed contractor and educator. His farming and building experience spans over three decades in which he has designed, built and managed a diversity of ecologically-based farming projects both in the rural and urban landscapes, including innovating systems on rooftops to rewild the urban centers. As an educator he has facilitated over a dozen Ecological Design Courses and worked with hundreds of public high school students in Natural Resource Management. Ben sees water as the driver of design and invests a great deal of farming energy planting the water.
Olivia McCandless
Greenhouse Manager
Olivia is a farmer and artist. She has experience in floral production, orchard management and soil care. She believes that food, fibers, and flowers have the ability to heal and empower. She is passionate about tending to the land and rebuilding relationships to the earth through farming and art.
Dominique Walker
Farming is Medicine Survey Coordinator/DMC Political Educator
Dominique Walker is a mother. She fights, organizes, and works for change. She co-founded her high school, the school of Social Justice and Community Development. She went on to earn her B.A in sociology from Tougaloo College. Walker has worked as a lactation consultant and assisted in birth work/doula work. In 2019 she co-founded M4H (Moms4Housing), a group of mothers fighting for housing and against speculation in our communities. She is newly elected Rent Board Commissioner for the City of Berkeley, California and is currently finishing her studies to apply to medical school, to further her continued commitment to improving Black maternal health.
Board of Directors
Valerie Segrest
Valerie Segrest, an enrolled member of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and works as a Native Nutrition Educator and is the Co-Founder of Tahoma Peak Solutions, a consulting company that specializes in strategic communications and food systems strategies that serve tribal communities. She has a Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition and Health Sciences from Bastyr University and a Master of Arts in Environment and Community. Ms. Segrest has dedicated her work in the field of Native American Nutrition towards the efforts of the food sovereignty movement rooted in education, awareness and overcoming barriers to accessing traditional foods for tribal communities throughout North America. Ms. Segrest has co-authored several publications, including “Feeding Seven Generations: A Salish Cookbook” and “Indigenous Home Cooking: Menus Inspired by the Ancestors.” Valerie aims to inspire and enlighten others about the importance of a nutrient-dense diet through a culturally appropriate, common sense approach to eating.
Walter Riley
Walter Riley was born in 1944, number 9 of 11 children born to a farming family in Durham County, North Carolina. His family farmed until he was about 6 years old. He grew up in the Jim Crow south and in his early teens, Walter became active in the Civil Rights Movement organizing voter registration, sit-ins, jobs campaigns, and in his late teens became Field Secretary for CORE (Congress for Racial Equality), got married and became a father. He moved to the Bay Area in the 1960s where he became active in the political, social justice movements. Walter is a long-time community activist and civil rights attorney.
Raj Patel
Raj Patel is a political ecologist, food systems activist, Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and most recently with Rupa Marya, Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. He is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and co-director of the documentary feature The Ants & The Grasshopper.
Support Circle
Eushavia Bogan
Farming is Medicine Volunteer
Eushavia Bogan (she/they) is an ecologically-minded community organizer and future physician interested in building public health systems that center preventive medicine and environmental stewardship. After completing her BA in Environmental Studies at Vassar College, Eushavia spent the past decade organizing with neighborhood stakeholders in her native Brooklyn, New York, to advance food sovereignty and improve community well-being. During this time, she collaborated with local coalitions to create farms, develop youth employment opportunities, facilitate science education programs, and produce art activations. Eushavia adamantly believes in decolonizing health and advocating for compassionate care. Over the next few years, she hopes to apply the knowledge she gained from these experiences to advance interdisciplinary science as a medical student at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine..
Tiffany Adams
Arts Advisor
Tiffany Adams (Chemehuevi/ Koyoomk’awi/Nisenan) is a multidisciplinary artist, maker, and activist who believes that place-based visual representation is inherent to healing, identity, and tribal sovereignty. For Adams, cultivating self-determination through an authentic visual story of a place is a mechanism for healing and positive identity, is critical to (re)clamation. Identity reclamation practice is central to the advancement of California Indigenous stories which she seeks to advance in her work and daily life. Adams received her BFA from the Institute of American Indians Arts and Indigenous Liberal Studies minor. Her work spans painting, jewelry, performance, regalia, clothing, and California red abalone work in regalia and contemporary finery. Tiffany’s work has been exhibited at the R.C. Gorman, MoCNA Santa Fe, and SWAIA Blue Ribbon recipient. Tiffany’s commission pieces include the cover work for Ope’ by Yulu Ewis, Sacramento Native American Health Center 2020 mural, California Indian Legal Services Abalone Women (2020) painting, and National Conference on Race and Ethnicity shirt designs. Her art has been shown in museums and galleries for 10+ years throughout California and SantaFe, New Mexico. You can find her work at tiffanyadamsartist.com
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Storyweaver
Following former fieldworker retraining in Santa Paula and Ventura in the mid-1980s, Allison began teaching, and she is now a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Hedge Coke is a 2022-2023 Mellon Dean’s Professor and affiliated faculty in the UCR School of Medicine (narrative medicine) and in the proposed Department of Society, Environment & Health Equity (SEHE). The social media hashtag #poempromptsforthepandemic hosts hundreds of original prompts she crafted as public outreach during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-descent career community advocate and organizer, teaching in urban, rural, reservation schools, community centers, migrant camps, incarceration and health facilities, she most recently directed UCR’s Writers Week Festival, the Along the Chaparral/Pūowaina project, and the Sandhill Crane Migration Literary Retreat and Festival.
Renee Baldocchi
Story and Arts Development Support
Reneé Marie Baldocchi, of Mexican/Italian descent was born on Ramaytush Ohlone Territory in 1961. She is an artist, arts activist, grant-writer, event producer, and curator. She runs Baldocchi Projects and Collaborations, a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection of the Arts and partners with San Francisco Bay Area artists and organizations focused on social justice, public health, sustainable living practices, and hope-inspired visions. Baldocchi is the former Director of Public Programs at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2005-2016) where she collaborated with BIPOC community members and presented inclusive multicultural community driven programs. Her advocacy provided funding, fellowships, and residencies to emerging, nationally, and internationally recognized artists of many disciplines. Her work of bridging the traditional museum perspective with community is most recognized in the long-running series, Friday Nights at the de Young. She and San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck co-founded the de Young Museum Native Advisory Council in 2005. She learned from and worked with Indigenous leaders who curated and presented public programs in an effort to educate the staff and visitors on the urgency of decolonization.
Circle of Advisors
L Frank Manriquez
Tongvan artist, canoe-builder, storyteller
L. Frank Manriquez is a Tongva/Ajachmem artist, writer and tribal activist. Her paintings have been featured in galleries and museums nationally and internationally. L. Frank is the co-founder of Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival and serves on the board of The Cultural Conservancy.
Rowen White
Indigenous seed keeper, author and artist
Rowen White is a Seedkeeper from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and an activist for Indigenous seed sovereignty. She is the founder and Creative Director of Sierra Seeds which serves a wide and diverse community and also cultivate programs specifically for Indigenous communities through the nonprofit sister program, Indigenous Seedkeepers Network.
Niria Alicia
Xicana climate justice organizer, human rights advocate, educator and storyteller
Niria is a Xicana human rights advocate, climate justice organizer, educator and storyteller dedicated to protecting the sacredness of Mother Earth and the dignity of historically oppressed peoples. Niria is currently producing a virtual version of “Run4Salmon”, a journey that for the past 4 years has engaged government officials, lawyers, advocates and everyday people on the 300-mile journey that the endangered Chinook salmon make along the waters of California’s largest watershed to inspire, educate and engage people in restoring this endangered keystone species that is essential to the health of California lands and waters.
Crystal Wahpepah
Kickapoo Indigenous Chef
Crystal Wahpepah is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo nation of Oklahoma who was born and raised in Oakland, California, on Ohlone land, surrounded by a multi-tribal, tight-knit, urban Native community. Crystal knew she wanted to cook for the community since volunteering at the Intertribal Friendship House at age 7, but had a number of careers before putting herself through culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in San Francisco. Crystal then participated in the program La Cocina, which helped her to set up a business plan for her catering business Wahpehpah’s Kitchen. Crystal received the Indigenous Artist Activist Award and has been inducted into the Native American Almanac for being one of the first Native American women to own a catering business. In 2016, she was the first Native American Chef to compete in the Food Network’s show, Chopped. Driven by her love for Native community and foods, she is opening Wahpehpah’s Kitchen restaurant in the Fruitvale district of Oakland in October, which will feature delicious healthy Indigenous cuisine.
Kanyon Sayers-Rood
Costanoan and Mutsun Ohlone/Chumash Culture Bearer
Kanyon also goes by her given Native name, Hahashkani, which in Chumash means "Coyote Woman." She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. Daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers and was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is available for anyone in need of ceremony. Kanyon's art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves—Art.
Anna Lappé
Anna Lappé, author and advocate
Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author and an advocate for sustainability and justice along the food chain. A James Beard Leadership Award winner, Anna is co-founder of Real Food Media, the co-author or author of three books, and a contributor to fourteen others most recently the 50th anniversary of her mother’s groundbreaking Diet for a Small Planet. She also organizes to move resources to the field, particularly through the Panta Rhea Foundation where she created and directs the Food Sovereignty Fund.
Nina Ichikawa
Asian American activist, writer, Director of Berkeley Food Institute
Nina F. Ichikawa is the Executive Director for the Berkeley Food Institute, an interdisciplinary research and action center on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Nina has advised on policy creation, implementation and outreach for a range of clients, including a U.S. Presidential primary campaign, Peace Boat Japan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Slow Food DC, community development corporations, schools, nonprofits and businesses.
Tipiziwin Tolman
Lakota/Dakota educator, winter count keeper, storyteller, culture bearer
Tipiziwin Tolman is Wičhíyena Dakota and Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta from the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North Dakota. She is a representative of the Skunk, Pretends Eagle, and Yellow Lodge extended families of the Standing Rock people and the Young extended family from the Spirit Lake Dakota people. Tipiziwin is currently a graduate student in the Master’s of Indigenous Language Revitalization at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Tipiziwin is a graduate of Washington State University’s Ti’tooqan Cuukweneewit Indigenous Teacher Preparation Project, an intensive indigenous pedagogy and indigenous world view aligned, culturally responsive elementary education program. She and her husband own “Haipazaza Phezuta”, which means Medicine Soaps in the Lakota language, an online soap and body product store that promotes family, sustainability, and respectful indigenous reciprocity relationships with medicine plant relatives.
Expanding Circle
Our work has been generously supported by Figure 8 Foundation, 11th Hour Foundation, Cris Mulvey and Jack Kuehn, Sallie Calhoun, Susan Pritzker, The Rockefeller Foundation, Tides Foundation, Full Spectrum Capital, Jodie Evans and CODEPINK, Panta Rhea Foundation, Marciano Family Foundation, Metabolic Studio, Small Planet Fund, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland, the City of Oakland, the USDA and others.
Our movement allies include Moms4Housing , Poor Magazine, People’s Programs, Latino Task Force, Booker T Washington Community Center, Native American Health Center, Do No Harm Coalition, Sogorea Te Land Trust, Mni Wiconi Health Circle, Sierra Seeds, Planting Justice, Health Justice Commons, PODER, La Via Campesina, Kitchen Table Advisors, and Full Spectrum Capital.