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Outside of her policy and advocacy work at Hunger-Free Oregon, Chris also acts as the Administrator to the Oregon Hunger Task Force, and co-facilitator for Hunger-Free Oregon’s SNAP Client Advisory Board. She holds two degrees in Gender, Race, and Nations with emphasis on Community Health Equity from Portland State University. Chris has 10 years of lived experience with situational poverty and food insecurity and is dedicated to surrounding herself in work that supports grassroots social change, women’s empowerment and advocacy, and policy changes that reduce racial, social, and gendered disparities. Outside of work, Chris lives in the suburbs of Portland with her two grown boys, an absurd amount of houseplants, and her two dogs – all of which are the center of her universe.

Olivia (she/her) identifies as a queer, biracial Black survivor and is passionate about identifying oppressive and inequitable structures and coming up with transformative solutions. She currently works as a domestic violence advocate and provides holistic support to BIPOC, international, and LGBTQ+ students in Portland State University’s School of Business. She worked in higher education fundraising for 7 years, done community organizing and workplace organizing, and consults with organizations to advance equity for minoritized folks. Olivia holds a master’s in higher education and student affairs and is a master’s in social work candidate at PSU.

Olivia has lived in Portland with her partner since 2019. Prior to living in Oregon, Olivia attended college and lived in the Bay Area for 8 years. In her free time, she loves to cook and eat, sing at the top of her lungs, and soak up every minute of sunshine she can.

Camerina is a bi+ small business owner. Her people are from Cuautla, Jalisco, México and she comes from a long line of artisans and farmers. She believes her soul’s purpose is to actuate conditions for social change and our collective liberation. She does this by amplifying the work of BIPOC small business owners and BIPOC-led organizations doing anti-oppression work, being committed to her own healing and decolonization, and learning to be an anti-capitalist entrepreneur.

Makerusa grew up in Portland by way of St. Johns, North Portland. He has been student organizing since early in his college days. He is the founder of the Pacific Islander Student Alliance (PISA), which started in 2007 when he was an undergraduate student. He is also the founding coordinator of the Men of Color Leadership Program at Portland Community College, and before that, he was the coordinator of the Pacific Islander, Asian and Asian American (PIAAA) Student Center at Portland State University, the Manager of Continuing Education at the University of the South Pacific, Majuro Campus, and the Director of the Office of Student Activities and Leadership at Chaminade University.

Makerusa is a second-generation American Samoan from the village of Fogagogo. Mak started his college education at American Samoa Community College. He later received his BS from Portland State University, and a Master’s in Education from Chaminade University of Honolulu. Away from his day job, Mak is an organizer with the Pacific Climate Warriors of 350 Pacific, and is the former Chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a 501(c)(3) organization for Samoans in Oregon.

Davis is a 24-year-old queer femme who likes to put noses on their colon smiley faces :-). Interested in art and design for most of their life, Davis is currently a student. They are bringing a solid commitment to social and gender justice, a desire to learn about activist-led grantmaking, and a “strong Jewish voice” to Seeding Justice’s grantmaking committee.

Alessandra de la Torre works at Rogue Climate in Southern Oregon. Born and raised in the Bay Area, her goal is to increase diverse representation in advocacy spaces both locally and statewide, while intersecting social and environmental movements. Alessandra is a proud queer Chicana from immigrant parents and a first-generation high school and college graduate. She believes our shared liberation is of utmost importance and it can happen through political advocacy, civic engagement, grassroots organizing, and community healing. In her downtime, she enjoys dancing (a lot), talking with loved ones, skiing, and wishing she had a dog.

Intisar Abioto (b. Memphis, TN. 1986) is a movement artist working across photography, dance, and writing. Moving from the visionary and embodied root of Blackgirl Southern cross-temporal cross-modal storytelling ways, her works refer to the living breath/breadth of people of African descent against the expanse of their storied, geographic, and imaginative landscapes. ​Working in long-form projects that encompass the visual, folkloric, documentary, and performing arts, she has produced ​The People Could Fly Project​, ​The Black Portlanders​, and ​The Black​. Abioto’s publication ​Black Portlands ​documents interviews with Black Portlanders alongside her photographs. ​She was a contributing photographer to ​MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora​ (2017) and her photographs illustrated the Urban League of Portland’s ​State of Black Oregon 2015​. Alongside the five women artists in her family, she is the co-founder of Studio Abioto, a multivalent creative arts studio. ​She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Zoë Gamell Brown is a queer, first-generation Boviander Guyanese American integrative artist, educator, and storyteller based in Kalapuya Ilihi. Her work explores multiplicity within Guyanese relationality, extending from South American shores to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf Coast through ancestral practices, ceramic sculptures, culinary catharsis, creative nonfiction, experimental video, photopoetry, restorative cartography, and sonic arts.

Brown is a doctoral student in the University of Oregon Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies’ inaugural cohort and a recipient of the New Media and Culture Certificate. Her research explores the shoals where race and Indigeneity meet within Boviander ecologies, using critical autotheory to practice creative, culinary, microbial, and spiritual care. In 2020, she founded Fernland Studios to reimagine environmentalism through artist residencies, educational retreats, and writing workshops with Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

May Maylisa Cat is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans new media, performance art, sculpture, and installation. She grew up in Chicago, IL and graduated from Cooper Union School of Art in New York, NY.

Her projects have received support from the Franklin Furnace Fund; Oregon Arts Commission; Open Signal New Media Fellowship; and Regional Arts and Culture Council of Portland, OR. She is a recipient of the 2022 Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship.

May has attended residencies at Chautauqua Visual Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, Fountainhead Arts, Pilchuck Glass School, Wassaic Project, Caldera Arts, and many others. She has spoken as a guest lecturer for Carnegie Mellon University School of Fine Art in Pittsburgh, PA; Yale School of Art in New Haven, CT; Cooper Union in New York, NY; and as a teaching artist for Caldera Arts in Sisters, OR.

Akela Jaffi is a multidisciplinary artist working in Portland Oregon. Training since the age of 14, dance is the craft in which she feels most at home. Movement is her method of connecting with spirit, as well as her ritual for archiving the comings and goings of life. A graduate of Jefferson High School, she is incredibly grateful to the teachers who invested their time and attention into her practice. Akela is the creator or BASS, an artists showcase focused on uplifting black performers of all mediums. BASS intends to provide competitive performance opportunities and artist development built on community and collaboration. Akela works to inspire younger generations of blackness through her production work, and intends on creating for the studio, stage and screen for the rest of her life.

Michelle Fujii is a taiko artist, co-director of Unit Souzou, and educator, creating contemporary work centered in the art forms of taiko and Japanese folk dance. Michelle’s work navigates the multifaceted complexity of identity in our communities, a constant excavation to claim their own identity story. After graduating with a UCLA ethnomusicology degree, Michelle studied in Japan with foremost theatrical folk dance company, Warabi-za through a Japanese Bunkacho fellowship. Michelle has been a guest artist and collaborator with numerous North American and international taiko groups. In 2014, Michelle with her partner Toru Watanabe, fused their unique skills to build Unit Souzou, a Portland-based taiko ensemble creating an expressive blend of taiko and Japanese folk dance, forging new traditions for evolving communities.

She serves on the board of Arts Northwest, Artist Advisory Council of Dance Place, and is the Co-chair of Women & Taiko, a movement dedicated to make visible the contributions of womxn taiko leaders. Michelle has been awarded fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Jubilation Foundation. Her newest work, Constant State of Otherness, is a National Performance Network, MAPFund, and New England Foundation for the Arts funded project, which centers on the historical and divisive ways that othering has pervasively and insidiously affected our communities.

Roux Haile is a transdisciplinary artist: I see my practices as a natural byproduct of my daily survival as well as my passions; identity and creativity as elements which constantly inform eachother, resistant to compartmentalization that white supremacy encourages. Dance and circus work centers my physical disability and Black identity creating liminal space where assistive devices, Afro-centric movement and the Black Queer erotic coalesce. Because African body modification is often vilified and warped by colonialism, anti-Blackness and anti-indigeneity: my tattoo work is based in a desire to re-sanctify the relationship between client and artist. I am moving away from the detached, capitalistic relationship fostered by American Traditional tattooing, seeking to elevate and center Black bodily autonomy and determination. My social practice as director and co-founder of Ori Gallery is birthed out of the necessity for arts spaces that do not cater to the dominant hegemony and center the creative contributions of my communities. The fluidity and interconnectivity of my work is a constant source of inspiration and joy as it is a direct affront to the isolation imposed by supremacy culture.

Silver (he/they) is an AfroIndigenous, Non-binary Creative Polymath: an Interdisciplinary Artist, Visionary, and Advocate. Silver’s work is a means to explore self-expression, sovereignty, and mysticism. His creative process is rooted in the academy and his dynamic life experience. In 2020, Silver was featured via National Geographic, Willamette Week, and Oregon Public Broadcasting for their efforts in the Movement for Black Lives. Further, they were the 2017 Lilla Jewel Award winner of Oregon’s Seeding Justice. His work has also been featured in the San Diego Union Tribune, on The Today Show, and on KUSI news. From San Diego, CA, Silver has lived in Portland, OR since 2015. Visit Patreon.com/SilverChalice to become an exclusive Art Patron!