For the last 10 years, I have been nvolved in environmental movements in the Western New York area. Thriving communities cannot exist in a world where we do harm to the Earth. I have  helped to lead community campaigns to prevent and intervene in decisions regarding potentially toxic and known toxic waste sites, including stopping a proposed asphalt plant from being built in Hamburg and Niagara Falls, NY. I have created educational awareness campaigns on why race and place matter when looking at who gets breast cancer and why. During my time with Grassroots Gardens of WNY, I worked in solidarity with communities contributing to the local food system in building community gardens. I've organized and convened activists in Buffalo to create a people's policy on reclaiming vacant land towards establishing an ethic of communal care for it. With community gardeners and mental health partners, I have also established the first community-based therapeutic gardening program in Western New York and perhaps the first of its kind in the country that applied a trauma-informed approach to a community garden network the size of Grassroots Gardens. I've been lucky to study horticultural therapy with the New York Botanical Gardens and have spoken and written on environmental justice, therapeutic gardening, and fearless community conservation.

Finally, I guided Grassroots Gardens WNY through their accreditation as a land trust. I am available to help other land trusts do the same. I can also can assist land trusts, nature preserves, and gardening groups in considering how they can be more inclusive, equitable, accessible, and community-led.