Board of Directors

 

Amanda Everich (She/ They)
Black Farmer Fund

Amanda Everich (she/they) is a facilitator, visual artist and collaborator from The Bronx, NY (unceded Munsee Lenape land.) She is rooted in ten years of work for land, food and farming justice. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from The City College of New York, education training from The Loris Malaguzzi Center in Reggio Emilia, Italy, herbalism training with La Mala Yerba, farm training with the Rock Steady Farm Pollinator Program and is a graduate of Farm School NYC. She works at Black Farmer Fund as Community Facilitator and Education Manager supporting black owned farming and food businesses in the northeast. Her work is guided by learning from land stewards, jazz, improvisation and the power of storytelling to create the liberated worlds we will build.

 

Amani Olugbala (They/ Them)
Rested Root

Amani Olugbala is a Brooklyn-based musician, organizer, and healing-justice practitioner whose work moves at the intersection of art, liberation, and community. Rooted in Blaqueer feminist praxis, disability justice, and earth reverence, they have built their music and activism as one continuous thread of resistance and care. From writing and performing songs that hold the tension of trauma and hope, to organizing in local spaces resisting fascism and building new economies, they try to bring both fire and gentleness wherever they show up. As a facilitator and consultant, they help organizations shrink the gap between their values and their practices. Rested Root supports teams with living into the equity, access, and care they speak about. They deeply believe in worker co-ops and anti-capitalist practices as pathways toward collective freedom and sustainability. They are joining the NYC NoWC board to help strengthen the bridges between political education, art, healing justice and the co-op movement. Cultivating creative, healing-centered spaces for worker-owners across the city and nurturing the spirit of workplace democracy we all deserve.

 

 

Chris Fox (They/Them)
Action OSH

Chris Fox is a worker owner in Action OSH, an immigrant-led, unionized, worker-owned co-op of health and safety trainers. They are an industrial social worker of Dominican-American heritage who began working in the immigrant worker rights movement in 2014. Chris a proud member of the United Steelworkers (USW) union Local 4-318 and serves on the executive board of the local. They are also a leader in the USW Co-op Council with the aim to bring more worker-owned co-ops into the union and help the rest of the union understand and join the co-op movement. Additionally, Chris is also a member of the Executive Committee of the USFWC Union Co-op Council and co leads the technical assistance team. Chris previously worked on NYC NOWC staff as the Operations Manager from 2018 to 2020 and is especially proud to be serving as an interim board member through the end of 2024. Chris live in Flatbush, Brooklyn with their dog Olive and in their free enjoys soaking up nature, eating delicious things and playing with their nephews.

 

Félix Gardón Rivera (They/ Them/ Ellx)
Oasis Solidarity Collective

Félix E. Gardón Rivera is an interpreter/actor/artist/activist. Gardón is a queer economic justice activist and a language advocate and an experienced trainer and facilitator that has held various positions to develop new leadership and trainers in multiple topics on economic, gender, social, and justice. They were one of the co-founders and co-chairs of Queers for Economic Justice, worker/ owner of Caracol Language LLC, and Robert W, Maggs Designs LLC among others. They also worked as Director of Education/Advocacy for SAGE (Services and Advocacy for LGBTQ Elders,) Program Coordinator Specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, where they developed the Standards for Cultural Competency for the Ryan White Tittle 1 programs in NJ, Director of Education for AVP, and direct service member of the SRLP collective providing language access services for legal clinics in  NYC for the transgender community. Felix is also an actor artist and co-founded the Puerto Rican Actors troupe Los Cuatro Gatos. For 15 yrs they were part of the Medicine Show Theatre, the oldest experimental theater group in NYC. They studied with the renowned Greek artist Omiros and has shown in various galleries in Philadelphia and NJ.

 

Jene Patterson (They/ Them)
Praxis Syndicate

Jene is a dedicated community collaborator and advocate. With over a decade of experience in both nonprofit and community spaces with work ranging from direct action, mutual aid, gala, festival, and party organizing they have directed their effort and focus towards launching an ethical online marketplace.

 

 

 

 

 

Kendall Allison (They/ Them)
Resource Generation / Breath Door Show

Kendall Allison is a comedian who lives in Brooklyn. They are a member of Resource Generation, an organization that mobilizes young people with wealth and class privilege to redistribute their money to movement building and the solidarity economy. They produce the Breath Door Comedy show which combines stand up with political education about solidarity economy organizing in New York City. They are currently the program manager at Reckon With (www.reckonwith.org), and have a masters degree from CUNY.

 

 

 

 

Marc de Konkoly Thege (He/ They)
Mi Oh My Hydroponic Farms

Marc is a New Yorker by way of being born and raised in Manhattan, attending school in Brooklyn, and has lived and worked in the Bronx for the past 9 years, living in the Morris Park, Soundview and Allerton neighborhoods. He is the Education Steward of Mi Oh My Hydroponic Farms, leading the worker-cooperative’s initiative to bring its food sovereignty and superfoods STEAM education lab into dozens of K-12 schools and community partners around NYC. He is the lead designer of Mi Oh My Farms in-classroom farms and accompanying curricula. Mi Oh My Farms is a worker-owned cooperative with 6 members and 2 employees with the mission to offer education and food sovereignty tools to food-insecure and underserved communities. Marc has worked in energy, organics recycling, community health, and urban agriculture industries and is deeply passionate about progressive visions to transform these industries to meet human and environmental needs. Marc has a Masters degree in Energy Regulation and Law and is a self-described community scientist, urban agriculture designer, applied mycologist, and overall tinkerer. He is currently conversational in Spanish and Portuguese, but has the goal to become a “fluent” Spanish speaker by the end of 2027. Marc has a deep passion for increasing community power and wealth through community initiatives and resource sharing for community work and initiatives. He seeks to build lasting networks and collaborations between individuals and organizations to build collective health and wealth.

 

Nicole Rodriguez (She/ They)
Wholehearted Bookkeeping 

Nicole is a bilingual WOC native to Washington Heights. As a first generation American, she has seen the effects of systemic inequality firsthand. She has worked with other worker cooperatives providing administrative support and dipped her toe in Finance when establishing a cooperative coffee shop in NYC. She is a self-taught bookkeeper with 3 years experience.

 

 

Franklin Salazar (He/ El)
Radiate Consulting NYC

Franklin Salazar has been in the cooperative space for 4 years. First as a member of the Sunset Scholars in Sunset Park and now with  Radiate Consulting NYC. Originally from Colombia, Franklin has always been involved on his community and defended the rights of immigrants like himself.

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa Toussaint (She/ Ella)
Goumel Coop

Melissa Toussaint is a compassionate public servant, advocate, resource connector, and educator dedicated to strengthening cooperative structures and uplifting underserved communities. Currently a worker-owner of Goumel, a Haitian-focused food cooperative, Melissa is also a Community Action Network (CAN) Coordinator with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), where she passionately supports maternal health initiatives across the city. With a Master’s degree in Sexual Reproductive Health, she brings both expertise and empathy to her work, supporting vulnerable communities through her roles as a doula, parenting class facilitator, ESL instructor, and mentor for immigrant youth. Melissa’s commitment to cooperatives is deeply rooted in her family’s story; inspired by her grandmother, a farmer and entrepreneur in Haiti, she believes in the power of economic independence and community self-reliance. Currently pursuing her PMP certification, Melissa is eager to contribute her project management, organizational skills, and community-building expertise to the NYC NOWC board, where she seeks to amplify resources, promote sustainable practices, and champion the cooperative movement across New York City.

 

Adam Trott (He/ El)
Shared Capital Cooperative & Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives

Adam Trott is the Director of Member Relations for Shared Capital Cooperative, a national CDFI loan fund that connects co-ops and capital to build economic democracy. He is also the Executive Director of the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives, a co-op of worker co-ops that supports, develops and educates about and for worker co-operatives. Adam spent 13 years as a worker-member of Collective Copies, a worker collective and union shop western Massachusetts and served on his union’s Regional Executive Board. He received a Masters in Co-operative and Credit Union Management from St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2019. His research is about the impact and power of co-operative associations in North America and throughout the world. Adam has had the pleasure of several board appointments including the Eastern Coordinating Council (organizing group for the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy), founding board member of the Cooperative Capital Fund, United Electrical Workers Union Local 274 representative to the Northeast General Executive Board, founding member of the Valley Co-operative Business Association and more.

 

Officers

Co-Chair:   Félix Gardón Rivera (They/ Them/Ellx), Oasis Solidarity Collective
Co-Chair:   Jacqueline Gaskin  (She/ Ella), AdornMix Inc.
Treasurer:  Nicole Rodriguez (She/ They), Wholehearted Bookkeeping
Secretary:   Angel Pleasant (They/ Ellx), Palante Technology Cooperative