TEAM
EDWARD "EDDIE" HILL
Co-Director, Black Food Sovereignty Coalition
Edward Hill is an innovator and driver of work at the intersections of food justice, food systems improvement, and BIPOC food economies for Black and Brown People in the Pacific Northwest. Starting as an organic small-acre farmer apprentice in Olympia, WA, he continues to promote and demonstrate how community-based food systems, equity, and green workforce development intersect. He has advocated for innovative environmental and food-based programs and business development for the Black community in the Northwest, helping to launch the Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Red Barn Ranch Farms for Tilth Alliance, working at Growing Power with Will Allen, and consulting internationally on urban design, equitable development, and urban farm projects as a food systems planner.
CHARLES SMITH
Co-Director, Black Food Sovereignty Coalition
Charles Smith, MSW- is a father of 6, husband, and active community servant. He is the chief instructor of Portland Soo Bahk Do- martial arts and wellness training, and the owner/principal consultant at Charles Smith and Associates LLC- providing consultation, training, program develop, and counseling services. His current projects include coordinating Grandma\'s Hands- engaging Black families and community in sharing cultural food traditions; serving as a Parent Partner at the Oregon Family to Family Health Information Center- serving families of children with special health needs; and working with the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation of Oregon.
MIRABAI COLLINS
Co-Director, Black Futures Farm
Mirabai Collins is a program coordinator for the Lettuce Grow program at Growing Gardens and an educational coordinator for the Institute for Applied Ecology, in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches and helps to grow food in prisons. She holds an undergraduate degree in English with an emphasis in linguistics, and is concerned with African American poetics as relates to expressive constructs within oppressive and undermining frameworks. Attendant to this work is the exploration of un/natural environments and their creative possibilities, which brings her back to the land and, as a member of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition and Co-director and farmer at Black Futures Farm, the fight for food-systems justice.
MALCOLM SHABAZZ HOOVER
Co-Director, Black Futures Farm
Malcolm Hoover is a father, grandfather, and third generation community organizer. He is the co-director of Black Futures Farms, in SE Portland, and a member of the BFSC leadership team. His many jobs have included: assembly line worker making Doppler radar rigs, journalist, tech writer, High School and Elementary School teacher, counselor, US Navy Weatherman, video game tester, and book peddler. Malcolm\'s first book, \"144 Poems and Essays for God, Love, Truth, Justice, Peace and Hip Hop,\" was published in 2015 by Tayen Lane Press.