Zoe Hollomon

she / her

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Zoe Holloman is a multi-racial black, queer, activist and abolitionist. She is the eldest of 3 siblings and comes from a long line of freedom fighters. Zoe was born in Duluth, MN but grew up mainly in NY (Buffalo and NYC). Zoe has over 20 years' experience organizing with grassroots organizations on the East Coast and Midwest, building organizations to influence decision-making in food, farming and environmental related policy. She moved back to MN in 2012 and has since worked advocating and organizing for justice in local, regional and national contexts.  

Zoe is a founding member of Rootsprings Farm & Retreat Cooperative in MN, which produces fruit and is a healing retreat space for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people and organizations.  Zoe is a proud co-founder of the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective and in her role as the Executive Director, she leads the organization’s policy work and fundraising & development. She is humbled and amazed by the ingenuity, courage and wisdom of the farmers and cultivators MFCC works with.

Zoe serves on the Union of Concerned Scientists Transformational Farm Bill Advisory Committee, with other partner organizations fighting for a just transition of our food and agricultural systems. She has served on the Homegrown Minneapolis Food Policy Council and does consulting in Racial Equity in Food Systems. Zoe is also a visual artist and a proud member of the Subversive Sirens, a MN based Synchronized Swimming team committed to black liberation, equity in aquatics, queer visibility, and radical body acceptance. Zoe received her B.S. in Urban & Regional Planning from Cornell University in 2001 and an M.S. from Southern New Hampshire University in Community Economic Development in 2007.

Sammie Ardito Rivera

she / they

OPERATIONS & ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT LEAD

Sammie Ardito Rivera (she/they) is a Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member and has paternal ties to White Earth. She received a Bachelor’s in Applied Indigenous Studies with an emphasis in Traditional Ecological Knowledge at Northern Arizona University and her movement education, working with diverse communities across the United States on social and economic justice, climate resiliency and sustainability, and Indigenous sovereignty. For the past decade, she worked at Marnita’s Table, a Minnesota-based non-profit bringing together diverse groups to address social and policy concerns and amplify marginalized voices. She is currently honing her skills in the Master of Human Rights Program to pivot to full-time work in research supporting the advancement of social change, the interdependence of oppression, and the imperative to transcend our community silos and national boundaries in addressing the urgent issues of our era. 

Levi Welbourn

he / him / el

FARMER MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZER

Levi Welbourn, a Chicago native land steward that weaves together his experience as a community organizer, educator, and artist. He is a policy advocate that stands up for liberation, building resilient thriving community care and collaborate towards equitable and sustainable food systems. 

Now, Levi calls Minnesota his home where he continues his advocacy work through the lens of food justice, land stewardship, and community healing. Levi works to address disparities and dismantle social and economic barriers emerging farmers face nationwide/globally and empowering people to connect back to ancestral knowledge.

Outside of work, Levi spends time blooming outdoors, traveling, storytelling and sharing recipes, lending a hand with work to support farm families, and sharing meals with his community. 

Samantha Bailey

she / her

FUND DIRECTOR, RADICAL RESOURCE AND LAND FUND

Samantha Bailey is of South Asian and European descent, raised in the Midwest by two 1st and 3rd generation immigrants and their parents. She believes deeply in weaving stories into our work of collective liberation and systems change. She comes to financial justice with her own complexity, growing up in a single income household and attending private schools using financial aid, leading her to wonder how and why wealth is unevenly distributed. She has been pursuing that question for over a decade through education and work in economic and racial justice, and her framework has and will continue to shift the rest of her life. Right now, her mission is to redistribute wealth in ways that center relationships, and to communities that are owed repair. She envisions this wealth redistribution creating an abundant and loving future. Samantha is grateful to be a part of the leadership team that is building the Radical Resource & Land Fund and especially proud of our shared commitment to putting farmers first, in fund design and decision-making. Prior to MFCC, she worked at Software for Good as a Strategist and Shared Capital Cooperative as Lending Team Manager. Samantha holds a BA from Wesleyan University and a MBA-MPP from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. 

Kat Gilje

she / her

RESOURCE STRATEGIST,

JUST IMPACT FUTURES

Kat is a sweets and daughter, with a beloved queer and trans family, a love of insects; the prairie, lakes and forests of the Midwest; and the power of the rolling ocean. Kat grew up in the Midwest, was shaped by the land, her family, and the forces of white settlement. She was transformed by multiracial struggles for justice, land stewardship, and union and populist organizing. She turned to community organizing after witnessing the decimation of economies, communities, and ecology by corporate, industrial agriculture. Her diagnosis with lifelong chronic illness without health insurance, while attempting to farm and build local, healthy, and just food systems, politicized her further.

Kat has thirty years experience in movements for social, economic, and land justice. Kat’s organizing training comes through Voices for Racial Justice/Organizing Apprenticeship Project, Gamaliel, and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and she studied plant and soil sciences with her grandmother, and at the University of Minnesota College of Agriculture. She was co–director of Centro Campesino, senior associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and co–director of Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, which led her west and into global movements for land and liberation in the face of chemical industry power. 

Over the past 15 years, Kat has focused on financial resourcing and infrastructure for social movements and land–based economies. She served as Executive Director of Ceres Trust, a private foundation redistributing all assets to grassroots movements, farmers, and Indigenous land stewards. She is an organizer, integrated capital strategist, and somatic practitioner. Kat is Managing Director at Just Futures Impact and consultant with Justice Funders.. She holds the Series 65 Investment Advisor license. Kat is active in her faith community, and serves on the board of directors of Community Water Center, and the Advisory Circles for the Radical Resource and Land Fund, Feed Black Futures, and re:Wild Your Campus. She loves to dance, play music, create spreadsheets, and to be outdoors, muttering about with the plants. Kat is committed to reparationist action as ancestral healing, and redistribution of wealth toward shared prosperity.

Sophia Benrud

they / she

MIDWEST FARMERS OF COLOR MAPPING PROJECT LEAD

Sophia Benrud is a Black multiracial queer community organizer, postpartum doula and chef currently residing in Minneapolis, MN. Sophia is the environmental justice organizer and cofounder of Black Visions, a Black led Queer and Trans centering organization committed to strengthening community and community led safely —building connections between BIPOC climate and environmental, food, and healing justice. Sophia is committed to transforming the current movement by centering communities directly impacted by these issues while building stronger movements to break down systemic violence; and a cofounder of Divine Natural Ancestry, a project of 2 seasons that supports community through tools, supplies and knowledge for growing food in BIPOC communities. Sophia is a board member of Spiral Collective, an organization supporting people in reproduction, abortion and loss.  During the past two summers, Sophia has facilitated youth projects and programs focused on environmental justice through the Sierra Student Coalition.

Kieran Morris

he / him

CULTIVATORS FUND PROJECT LEAD

Kieran Morris is a new explorer in the world of food justice and community growing, getting involved with supply distribution and network building as a part of the Seward Free Space. The food insecurity near his childhood home in South Minneapolis that was inflamed after George Floyd’s murder, combined with the supply chain crisis in the opening days of the Pandemic showed him first-hand how critical it is that neglected communities are supporting and fostering sovereignty through their land stewards and growers. A background studying history at the University of MN- Twin Cities gave him a broader perspective on the forces of discrimination and disparity still reverberating into modern food crises.

Following 2020, Kieran became an organizer with Twin Cities Community Land Trust, helping facilitate tours and create connections between urban growers, and found a place with Urban Farm and Garden Alliance as part of their Green Justice Team. After meeting Michael Chaney on one of the TCALT farm walks, he became involved in Project Sweetie Pie as a dedicated grant writing specialist with VISTA and the Northside Promise Zone. Throughout these experiences in urban growing, he also guides canoe trips and does outdoor education through Wilderness Inquiry and continues to support food justice in the Seward Neighborhood.

 As a part of Midwest Farmers of Color’s Coordination Team, Kieran hopes to continue strengthening and deepening links between Twin Cities groups and broadening connections to rural Minnesota and the broader Midwest. As a believer in the power of diverse opinions and DIY solutions, he is excited to see how the different worlds of culturally-centered growing and cross-cultural connection can heal old wounds and cultivate new possibilities.

Queen Frye

she / her

SEED LIBRARIAN

Queen Frye, a generational urban farmer, lead farmer of R. Roots Garden in North Mpls for 7 seasons and the recipient of the 2024 University of Minnesota Family Farm of the Year Award for Hennepin County. A lover of all things agriculture. Queen began learning to save her own seeds from her garden in 2020 as a way to honor her core value, sustainability. She is looking forward to being the seed library coordinator and hopes that we can ALL learn something this season. 

Ray Young-Longdon

they / them

ADMINISTRATIVE & COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Ray Young-Longdon is a biracial, queer, artist, educator, and facilitator currently based in Saint Paul, MN. Growing up in Wisconsin, Ray’s early experiences with their family’s involvement in disability justice, education advocacy, and respect for land and water, has moved them in their continued work as artist, educator, and farmer. 

With connections to the West Coast, Ray graduated from Seattle University, WA, with their Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Studio Arts in 2016; in 2019, Ray received their Masters of Education from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. From 2016 to 2024, Ray worked in Saint Paul classrooms creating visual and media arts programming to support middle, elementary, and early pre-school learners.

After 8 years of teaching, Ray transitioned out of the classroom to seek out new opportunities and reconnected with an early love of farming. With years of volunteering on farms and working as a seasonal farmer, Ray is excited to continue to be in community with farmers by supporting the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective.  Ray is the MFCC Administrative Systems and Communications Specialist, bringing over 8 years of experience with program development, organizing, graphic design, facilitation, and accessible content creation.

2020 CO-FOUNDERS

Vera F. Allen

Hindolo Pokawa

Michael Chaney

Zoe Hollomon

Sophia Benrud Nybroten