OUR GRACIOUS HOST & FEATURED IN REST

Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana. She was the founder of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy and led the development of programming focused on equitable climate disaster recovery, global migration, community economic development and energy democracy for more than 17 years in the Gulf South. Colette now serves as the Partner of Vision & Initiatives at Taproot Earth, a global climate justice organization working for a world where all people can live, rest and thrive in the places they love. Colette was named a 2019 Obama Fellow for her work with Black and Native communities and is a 2022 William O. Douglas Award recipient given by the national Sierra Club recognizing her outstanding legal/judicial process to achieve environmental goals.

FEATURED IN REPAIR + RESOURCE

Alison Corwin is Program Director for Sustainable Environments at the Surdna Foundation, overseeing a $9.2 million grantmaking portfolio seeking to advance the Foundation’s social and racial justice mission. Working at the intersection of racial, economic, gender, environmental, and climate justice, Alison and the Sustainable Environments team advance racial justice and center the power of BIPOC communities. Alison is a student of the Just Transition movement and organizes to shift the culture and discourse toward a new approach that redistributes wealth, power, and control in a way that is truly regenerative for the planet. Alison serves as a board member, trustee, and advisor for several organizations and initiatives. 

FEATURED IN RESTORE & REST

Anthony is the father of three, rooted in Pennsylvania on Leni Lenape lands. He brings over a decade of experience partnering with community leaders to develop strategies that foster collective governance and advance participatory policymaking processes to dismantle structural racism within our energy, climate, and economic systems. Anthony has worked from the local to national levels, most recently growing statewide climate justice efforts in Pennsylvania. Prior to joining GCCLP, Anthony led the Just Community Energy Transition Project for six years. In this role, he co-created and authored multiple toolkits and movement resources, Additionally, Anthony co-designed a variety of local and national climate justice projects.  

FEATURED IN REPAIR + RESOURCE

Ashleigh Gardere, Executive Vice President, guides the development and execution of programs to ensure that the 100 million people in America living in or near poverty — particularly those who face the burdens of structural racism — can participate in a just society Formerly, she served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the New Orleans Business Alliance, the city’s economic development agency. She previously led a citywide Economic Opportunity Strategy as a Senior Advisor to former mayor Mitch Landrieu. Ashleigh has been recognized by Living Cities as one of the nation’s “Top 25 Disruptive Leaders” working to close racial opportunity gaps. She is an expert in economic and workforce development, organizational leadership and culture change, and large-scale systems transformation. 

FEATURED IN RECLAIM

Bette Billiot is a native of Dulac, LA and now resides in Houma, LA. She has  hosted multiple youth camps focused on tribal and environmental education. The camps exposed native  youth to the effects of coastal erosion and other natural and man-made disasters that are impacting  their coastal communities. In 2015, she was a facilitator for the 2015 Gulf South Rising Initiative, which  focused on significant commemorations, anniversaries, and historical turning points in the South. After  successfully completing the first Lead the Coast cohort as a participant in 2016, she was then asked to  participate in redeveloping and structure of the program in 2018. She then became a co-facilitator for  the Terrebonne/ Lafourche 2019 Lead the Coast Cohort. She was the Administrative Assistant to former Principal Chief Thomas Dardar of the United Houma Nation from 2013-2020. 

FEATURED IN  RECLAIM

Chief Thomas Dardar Jr. is the oldest of eleven children. He has been married to his wife, Noreen,  for 45 years. Together they have three children, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Mr. Dardar served as Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation for eight years. His local community support activities include serving on the Hurricane Relief Board and the Teche Action Board. He joyfully wears the bonnet of Indian Santa every year.

FEATURED IN RESTORE

Denise Fairchild is president emeritus of Emerald Cities Collaborative and currently a ClimateBreakthrough 2021 Awardee, the largest individual award of its kind and only the second U.S. awardee to date. Her 3-year $3 million grant focuses on designing a cultural response to the root cause of climate change – unsustainable economic growth – production and consumption policies and systems.

FEATURED IN REPAIR + RESOURCE

Experienced, justice-focused nonprofit executive and seasoned civic leader with demonstrated success in philanthropy, higher education and municipal government. Skilled in Nonprofit Leadership, Program Design, Volunteer Management, Public Speaking, Public Policy, and Philanthropy. Strong leadership, management and fund development skills.

FEATURED IN REST

Mana Tahaie is a first-generation Iranian-American and a lifelong red state progressive. Rooted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mana volunteers for the Terence Crutcher Foundation, organizes with the Demanding a JUSTulsa campaign for police reform, chairs a United Way community investment panel, and advises the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits. Mana previously served as convener of Changing the Status Quo, on the DEI committee of Mental Health Association Oklahoma, and on the board of Center for New Community. From 2008-2017, Mana worked at YWCA Tulsa; first as the inaugural Director of Racial Justice, later as the Director of Mission Impact, and finally as interim Director of Immigrant & Refugee Services. Before joining YWCA Tulsa, Mana served as the first Deputy Director of the LGBTQ+ organization Oklahomans for Equality. She envisions a world without punishment, where bodily autonomy and community safety are human rights guaranteed to all.

FEATURED IN RECKON

 Marsha Jackson is an Environmental activist. Ms. Jackson received the 2019 Sierra Club Environmentalist Award, 2020 Recipient of SMU 55th Symposium Women in Profiles Award, the 2020 Juanita Craft Humanitarian Award, and the 2020 Green Source DFW Leadership Environmental Award. Currently, Marsha is the co-chair of Southern Sector Rising, TX4GND Facilitative Lead, Juanita Craft House Civil Rights Museum Board/Membership Chair, Lane Plating EPA Superfund Community Advisory Group member, and Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter Women in Transit (WTS) Board Secretary.

FEATURED IN RISE

After 9 years as the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Miya Yoshitani recently moved into the position of Senior Strategist. Starting at APEN as a youth organizer in the 1990’s, Miya has an extensive background in community organizing, and a long history of working in the environmental justice movement. APEN has been fighting – and winning – environmental justice struggles for the past 28 years and remains one of the most unique organizations in the country explicitly developing the leadership and power of poor and working class Asian American immigrant and refugee communities at the intersection of racism, poverty and pollution. Through many years of leadership, Miya has supported APEN’s growth to having statewide impact through an integrated voter engagement strategy and winning transformational state policy for equitable climate solutions for all Californians. 

FEATURED IN RISE

Stephanie Guilloud lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Stephanie brings over 25 years of experience and leadership in global justice work and community organizing. Stephanie is the Co-Director at Project South, a movement institution built to eliminate poverty and genocide with strategies rooted in the Black Radical Traditions. Since 2003, she has worked closely with partners to initiate regional organizing projects, co-create the Southern Movement Assembly, and anchor the US Social Forum from 2008-2013. She served on the board of Southerners On New Ground (SONG), a multiracial queer organization, from 2005-2014 and Georgia WAND (Women Advocating New Directions), a grassroots anti-nuclear organization, from 2014-2021. Stephanie edited and designed the People's Movement Assembly Organizing Handbook and is the editor of two anthologies.

FEATURED IN REMEMBER

Teresa Bettis is the Executive Director of the Center for Fair Housing, Inc. professionally, and she has more than thirty years of experience in public works. Among those years, she has served the longest as the Executive Director for the Center for Fair Housing, Inc., a private non-profit civil rights organization for the last twenty-one years. As the Executive Director, Teresa oversees numerous programs and initiatives and manages seven staff while serving eight counties in Southwest Alabama. As Executive Director for the Center for Fair Housing, Inc. (the Center), she has served as an advocate for preserving underserved communities and fair and just treatment and access to equal opportunity. Teresa uses her position to bring recognition to those who have not had a voice.

FEATURED IN RECKON

Veronica Coptis joined the Center Coalfield Justice (CCJ) staff in March 2013 as a Community Organizer and now serves as the Executive Director. She grew up in western Greene County near the largest underground coal mine in the country. She currently lives in Carmichaels, PA, surrounded by shale gas extraction. Veronica has organized and invested in local residents to shift the Center for Coalfield Justice from three staff to over a dozen people who are rooted in the communities that CCJ services. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology from West Virginia University. She enjoys hiking and geocaching with her husband and daughters at Ryerson State Park and other areas around Greene County.