I have always been a big mouth and growing up on in the city of New York I had to be resourceful. So it is no wonder that my work in the community now depends on my resourcefulness and big mouth. I am an Environmental Justice activist, mom of three burgeoning revolutionaries and an upcoming urban farmer.

By day I am the Operations Manager at the Majora Carter Group (the original South Bronx Environmental Justice trailblazer) by night  (and weekends and holidays to boot) I am working to create community programs that will address food justice and remediate public health issues that I know affects all too many folks of color in the ‘hood.

It started 3 years ago when Irealized that I was unhappy in the corporate sector. I worked while raising my family to put myself through school only to find myself in an high demand, unfulfilling job on the lower rungs of the corporate latter and in the evening I found myself coming home to a community wrought with transfer stations, smells from water treatment facilities and an asthmatic child. I knew there had to be a way to help myself, my children and my community. I started volunteering with a local community group, Mothers on the Move where I excelled as a fearless speaker, a capable leader and an effective organizer and quickly caught the eye of the local press and other activist, which included Majora Carter. Suddenly the big mouth that my mother warned would get me in trouble was stirring up trouble but in the best way possible.  I became known to community members and local elected officials as candid (sometimes to a fault), witty, relatable and articulate. 

In the three years that I have dedicated myself to environmental work, I have started an organization called The BLK Projek which focuses on food justice particularly as it relates to public and mental health for undeserved women of color. My community programming includes starting the area’s first yoga series that utilizes yoga has a coping mechanism and concentrates on enriching the lives of its participants by including education surrounding sustainability, organic food and nutrition. My latest challenge has been rallying the cause to place an urban farm on a piece of underdeveloped NYC Parks Dept land. I have been talking to the local City Councilwoman, South Bronx Health clinic and more importantly my neighbors.

In a past life (actually about 7 years ago) I was a burgeoning spoken word poet and emcee and my future work includes bringing socially conscious hip hop and urban culture together with the environmental work that I do. I am curious to see what that concoction will bring.

I truly believes that most of the “-isms” that are felt in the hood stem from environmental degradation and in order to change that the people must raise up and champion for the resources that will create a better, greener, healthier hood. I hope through my work I can be one of many successful architects of that and if I can raise and inspire other future architects than I have been both an effective Environmental leader and mother. And to that I think to myself  “word…I can dig it.”