Category: Arts

Erin Sharkey agreed to join us for our “Art & Movement Building: Strategies for Food Systems Change” at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) annual conference in Philly, PA this October, and we need your help to get there.

Click here to help us get to Philly.

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Erin’s Bio: Erin Sharkey is a writer, producer, educator and graphic designer based in Minneapolis. Formerly the Growing Green Creative Director at Buffalo’s Massachusetts Avenue Project, Erin is the co-founder/director of an experimental arts production company called Free Black Dirt. She is currently exploring soil, migration, farming, and astronomy as an artist in residence at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota.  Click here to learn more about Erin and her work.

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Click here to learn more about NESAWG and our workshop.

Lorna Hill agreed to join us for our “Art & Movement Building: Strategies for Food Systems Change” at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) annual conference in Philly, PA this October, and we need your help to get there.

Click here to help us get to Philly.

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Lorna’s Bio: Lorna C. Hill is, at her core, is an activist, working at the intersection of racial, economic, and environmental justice everyday of her life.

Ms. Hill is the founder and Artistic Director of Ujima Company, Inc., a multicultural professional theatre company, dedicated to providing a vehicle for African American performers, theatre artists, and administrators; the preservation of African American art and artistic practices; and using theatre as a tool for building the beloved community.

Ms. Hill is a multi-talented performer and director. Her experience includes stage, feature film, television, commercials, industrial films and voice-overs. She is also widely known as a storyteller par excellence.

Ms. Hill is a poet and playwright. Her best known play, “Yalla Bitch” was performed as part of the first International Women Playwrights Conference in 1986. “YB” originated as a book of poetry by the same name, the last edition of which was designed, laid out, and printed by Ms. Hill.

Ms. Hill serves as a community resource – appearing as a role model in various school programs, providing consultant services to community agencies and serving as a guest speaker for organizations whose agendas include women’s issues, arts and culture, children’s rights, cultural competence, non-violence and building the beloved community.

Ms. Hill is a teacher and teaching artist, giving writing workshops to young people, teaching acting, providing in-service training to teachers in the use of culture as an academic resource, acting before the camera, television interview techniques, language development and personal presentation. In 2014, she retired from the Buffalo Public Schools, where she taught theatre at the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts.  Click here to learn more about Lorna and her work.

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Click here to learn more about NESAWG and our workshop.

Rebekah Williams is a community organizer and trainer from Western New York and founder of Food for the Spirit and the Buffalo Food Equity Network.  With over twenty years working in non-profits in Buffalo, Rebekah has experience encouraging youth leadership, social and racial justice, environmentalism, and the arts.  In 2018, she joined a cohort of 10 individuals in the HEAL Food Alliance School of Political Leadership (SoPL), a national alliance working to create inclusive, democratic food and farm systems.

As part of HEAL’s SoPL, Rebekah focused on building her capacity to bring the Good Food Purchasing Program to Buffalo and has developed a greater understanding of relationships between race issues, policy, food, farming, and ecological justice.  Prior to her work on Good Food Purchasing, Rebekah served as Youth Education Director at MAP, where she worked with youth and adults in the community on food justice issues, incorporating her passion for the natural environment and equitable food systems, and encouraging youth leadership.

Rebekah has a Bachelors degree in Social Structure, Theory and Change from SUNY Empire State College; and has completed training with Training for Change in Philadelphia PA, Movement Generation in Oakland CA, the Buffalo Montessori Teacher Education Program, and North American Students of Cooperation in Chicago IL.