Planting the Seeds for Justice: Black Women Reimagining the Food System

Description:

In light of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) and Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources co-hosted a panel on Black-led food advocacy efforts. The goal of this panel was to deepen participants’ understanding of the intersection between food advocacy and racial justice. SERC was honored to present four incredible Black, female-identifying leaders to share their experiences as leaders within the food justice movement

Speakers: 

• Pinky Winchester—Pinky & Red’s (unable to attend live)
• Rain Truth—The Cultured Vegan
• Candice Elder—East Oakland Collective
• Ayano Jeffers-Fabro—Acta Non Verba, East Oakland Grocery Cooperative

Individual Speaker Bios:

Pinky Winchester: Founder and Executive Chef of Pinky & Red’s:

Pinky Winchester is the Founder and Executive Chef of Pinky & Red’s. This local restaurant, located within UC Berkeley’s MLK Student Union, specializes in soulful comfort food and brings the traditions of “old-fashioned Sunday dinners” and Southern hospitality to the hustle and bustle of college life. Pinky’s entrepreneurial spirit and amazing culinary skills have earned her the high praise of the campus community and the title of having one of the best chicken sandwiches in the Bay Area. Pinky hopes to continue sharing her love of soul food with students and eventually the entire country.

Rain Truth: Founder and Owner of The Cultured Vegan:

Chef Rain Truth is the owner and founder of “The Cultured Vegan,” a 100% vegan, family-owned catering business based in Chicago, IL. Classically trained at The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (Le Cordon Bleu) and New York’s Main Street Vegan Academy, Rain is a certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator, using her own experience as a plant-based chef and mother to teach culinary classes and spread her love of healthy, nourishing food to others in her community and beyond. She has a new book coming out this year titled “Mama, I’m Be-Gan/Mama, Soy Vegano.”

Candice Elder: Founder and Director of the East Oakland Collective (EOC): 

Candice Elder, an East Oakland native, is the Founder and Executive Director of the East Oakland Collective (EOC). It was the long stemming disinvestment and lack of resources in East Oakland that compelled Candice to found this grassroots membership based organization harnessing the collective power of millennials. EOC focuses on civic engagement and leadership, economic empowerment and advocacy, organizing, policy and housing justice for some of Oakland’s most vulnerable populations—Black residents and our unhoused neighbors. 

Ayano Jeffers-Fabro: Project Manager for the East Oakland Grocery Cooperative at Acta Non Verba: 

Ayano K. Jeffers-Fabro is the Project Manager for the East Oakland Grocery Cooperative; and an independent consultant for community food initiatives. Her experience growing up in the rural sugar-plantation town of Waialua, Hawai`i and now residing in East Oakland gives her the insight to draw urban-rural parallels around impacts that gentrification, social disenfranchisement, economic disinvestment and lack of resources in communities of color, has on creating and sustaining a healthy, thriving community. Ayano sees and lives through the food apartheid mechanisms in motion, and can utilize her talents and callings to combat these oppressive forces and inter-generationally heal community.

If you are able to, please consider donating to our speakers’ organizations! Donation links and other resources are listed below: 

• Acta Non Verba: East Oakland Grocery Cooperative: DONATE, subscribe to the newsletter, follow on IG @eastoaklandgrocerycoop
• East Oakland Collective: DONATE, volunteer, follow on IG @eastoaklandcollective
• The Cultured Vegan: DONATE, follow on IG @theculturedvegan
• Pinky & Red’s: DONATE, follow on IG @pinkyandreds