Speakers

Keynote

Malik Kenyatta Yakini, founder and Executive Director, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network

Malik Kenyatta Yakini is a founder and the Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN). DBCFSN operates a seven-acre urban farm and is spearheading the opening of a co-op grocery store in Detroit’s North End. Yakini views the “good food revolution” as part of the larger movement for freedom, justice and equality. He has an intense interest in contributing to the development of an international food sovereignty movement that embraces Blacks communities in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.

Beatriz Beckford, Campaign Director, MomsRising

Beatriz is a grassroots organizer with over 15 years of experience who works tirelessly along side grassroots groups domestically and internationally to organize for social change. Much of Beatriz’s expertise is spent training community leaders and emerging formations how to developm strategic campaigns lead by communities on the front lines of the struggle for racial equity and social justice.

Beatriz currently serves as a Campaign Director with MomsRising, specifically working on juvenile justice, criminal justice, sentencing reform and food justice issues. Beatriz is a co-founder and national organizer for the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, co-founder of The Brooklyn Food Coalition as well as the Alliance for Food and Racial Equity. Beatriz is a contributing author to the Movement for Black Lives Policy Platform, an investment divestment strategy for advancing racial equity for black communities in a time of rampant anti-blackness.

Beatriz centers intersectional movement building, transformative organizing, institution building, coalition building, radical kinship, and storytelling as key tactics in her work.

Beatriz’s most important role is being a proud mother to a wonderful little boy, and when she can squeezes in creative work as a visual/design artist.

General Session Panel

Rosalinda Guillén, the Executive Director of Community to Community Development

Rosalinda Guillén, the Executive Director of Community to Community Development (C2C) is a widely recognized farm worker and rural justice leader. The oldest of eight she was born in Texas and spent her first decade in Coahuila Mexico, her family immigrated to LaConner WA in 1960 and she began laboring as a farm worker with her family in the fields of Skagit County in Washington State at the age of ten.

Ms. Guillén has worked within the U.S. labor movement with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers of America (UFW) and represented farm workers at the Local, State, National and International levels as an elected National Vice President of the Union. She was the UFW’s lead Legislative and political officer for four years leading policy and election campaign efforts from Sacramento CA. Recently she has provided support, training and mentorship to the leadership of WA State’s newest self-organized farm worker union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia.

Rosalinda works on human rights and immigration reform, food sovereignty, solidarity economy, gender issues and environmental and climate justice as these issues relate to the farm worker and immigrant community in Skagit and Whatcom Counties and Washington State. C2C is a Bellingham based women-led grassroots organization working for a just society and healthy communities. C2C is a leading organization in the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, The National Dignity Campaign, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy, Climate Justice Alliance, the Agricultural Justice Project, National Domestic Fair Trade Association, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Food First and Front n Centered

George A. Jones, Chief Executive Officer

George A. Jones has been Chief Executive Officer of Bread for the City (BFC) since January 2, 1996. He is responsible for managing all administrative, financial, and programmatic aspects of the organization and its 100 full time staff.
Mr. Jones has led Bread for the City’s growth from a $1.2 million operation in 1996 to a $10.6 million operation in 2014. This growth included overseeing the development of a new center in Southeast DC in 2002, as well as the 11,000 sq. ft. expansion of BFC’s Northwest Center, which opened for service in December 2010.

In 2015, Georgetown University recognized Mr. Jones as a local leader working to solve some of the city’s most pressing challenges and honored him with the John Thompson, Jr. Legacy of a Dream Award.

Mr. Jones was appointed to the Access to Justice Commission in 2014 and was also recently selected to be a member of one of Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser’s transition committees on poverty and homelessness in DC.

From 1999 to 2007, Mr. Jones served as Chairman of the Board of the DC Primary Care Association (DCPCA), a non-profit which advocates for the expansion of healthcare access and reduction of healthcare disparities among low-income DC residents. He currently serves as the DCPCA’s Vice Chairman, is on the Center for Nonprofit Advancement Board, as well as the Board of the Capital Area Food Bank. Mr. Jones is also a 2011 winner of the Center for Non-Profit Advancement’s Gelman, Rosenberg, & Freedman EXCEL Award.

While serving as CEO of Bread for the City, the organization has been recognized for excellence by Johnson & Johnson, the District of Columbia government, the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (DC), DC Bar Pro Bono Program, and the District of Columbia Primary Care Association. The agency was also a two-time finalist and one-time winner for the Washington Post Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management.

In addition, Mr. Jones was recognized by Mayor Anthony Williams for 10 Years of Dedicated Service in April 2006 and received the Haynes Rice Award from the DC Hospital Association in 2011. Mr. Jones holds a B.A. in Psychology from Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Susanna Morgan, Chief Executive Officer

Susannah Morgan joined Oregon Food Bank as Chief Executive Officer in November 2012.

Under Susannah’s leadership, Oregon Food Bank has implemented a bold strategic plan that addresses both the need for nutritious food today and for long term solutions to hunger. Focus areas include the distribution of fresh produce, the connection between hunger and health, the expansion of nutrition education throughout Oregon, and growing capacity to organize communities to advocate for systemic change.

This year Susannah celebrates her 21st year in food banking, in San Francisco, Boston and Alaska. Susannah has served in multiple leadership roles in the national food bank network, Feeding America, and received its “Leader of the Year” Award in 2017.

Susannah received her bachelor’s degree in Japanese Language from Carleton College and her M.B.A. in Public and Nonprofit Management from Boston University. Susannah, her wife Dr. Jocelyn Krebs and their two small sons live in NE Portland.

Shanti Prasad, Senior Policy Advocate

Shanti Prasad is the Senior Policy Advocate at Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland, CA. She leads the Food Bank’s legislative advocacy efforts and works in partnership with state and national coalitions that aim to end hunger, poverty and inequity. Shanti also leads the Food Bank’s 20-year-old grassroots Community Advocates Against Hunger group.

She earned a BA from UC Berkeley and an MA in Food Systems Policy from New York University and has worked in food systems policy and community organizing in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City for the last ten years. Her commitment to food justice and equity is rooted in her maternal family’s history as farmworkers in California, memories of her grandparents’ lush backyard garden, and the delicious mix of Mexican American and Indian food that she was fortunate to enjoy during her childhood.