Who We Are

Current Board:

Jason Harvey (org management, strategic direction) is the founder and Executive Director of Oakland Food Connection. His previous work includes being the project coordinator for Environmental Justice Institute for the last four years, an Oakland-based organization that addresses serious community health and development issues around education, nutrition, environmental toxins and community-based economic development in Oakland and the Bay Area Region. Prior to this work, Jason worked his way through high school at the San Francisco Bay Girl Scout Council as a data entry/mail clerk, United States Air Force as a logistics specialist and San Francisco Bay French Bread Company as a sanitation engineer. He holds a BA in History from San Francisco State University. Currently, he is a Nutrition Education Student at Bauman College in Berkeley, CA. Eventually he will move on to pursue a MA in Cultural Anthropology from CIIS.

David Funkhouser(org management, strategic direction, fundraising) is Strategic Outreach Coordinator at TransFair USA, an Oakland-based non-profit that certifies and promotes Fair Trade products. TransFair's mission is to build a more equitable and sustainable model of international trade that benefits produces, consumers, industry, and the earth. Previous experience has included work on Africa and Latin America with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-based development and relief organization; education and organizing work on Central America issues; and parish ministry and faith-based community organizing in the Episcopal church.

Shereen D’Souza (program coordination, community outreach, fundraising) is a program coordinator for Oakland Based Urban Gardens (OBUGS), a non-profit organization whose mission it is to strengthen families and build community through educational programs offered in a network of neighborhood gardens, green spaces and farmers markets. As program coordinator, Shereen manages a job readiness and environmental justice training program for teenagers. Shereen is also an integral part of Sustaining Ourselves Locally, a volunteer community development organization that focuses on food security in the Fruitvale District of Oakland. Shereen also worked for the U.S. Peace Corps in Honduras as a community development and agriculture extensionist. Shereen holds a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

New 2007 Board Members:

Alison Hope Alkon (fund development, research, outreach) is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California Davis. Her research compares cultural and political aspects of farmers markets across demographically distinct contexts in order to integrate struggles against racism and inequality with those seeking environmental sustainability. She regularly teaches courses in both the Sociology and American Studies departments and has also organized interdisciplinary classes and lecture series on environmental topics. An avid gardener and home cook, Alison has lived and worked on several organic farm and garden projects in both California and Mexico.

Rowan Driscoll (program and curricula development, fundraising) is currently Unity high’s Science Teacher. Here is a sample of his resume.

-Teach three Biology and two Chemistry courses to sophomores and juniors respectively at a site based charter school. The class sizes are small and skill-centered with a focus on practical understanding of concepts.
- Advise twenty students from freshmen year until graduation with a focus on scholastic skills, community building and college preparation.
- Involved in multiple facets of school operation including programming, staffing and funding.
- Director, Camp Unique, Portola Valley, California. June-August of 2006 and 2007. Co-directed a staff of 25 counselors in the daily schedule of activities and programs for children aged 5-17. Responsibilities include staff training, programming, staff assessment and development, safety monitoring, camper orientation and facilities maintenance.
- Student Teacher, Central Falls High School, Central Falls, Rhode Island. January – May 2004. Taught two constructivist classes of Applied Bio-Chemistry to sophomores, juniors and seniors. The classes were part of a cooperative program with the Save The Bay Foundation and were centered on the urban ecology of the Blackstone River and Narragansett Bay.
- Student Proctor, Education Department, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. September – January 2004. Conducted preliminary research and design of two education courses: “Social Context of Learning and Development” and “Contemporary Social Problems: Views from Education and Development”.
- Math/Science Teacher/ Admission Associate/ Coach/ Dorm Parent, Trinity-Pawling School, Pawling, New York. September 2000 – June 2003. Taught two years of skills centered Biology to ninth and tenth graders. Taught one year of both pre-calculus and geometry. As an Admission associate in an office of four, conducted interviews, ran fairs, oversaw special events and tours and reviewed applications for admission. Coached varsity football, strength and conditioning and junior varsity baseball. Jointly oversaw a dorm of 14 junior boys for three years.
- Counselor and Program Coordinator, Mountain Camp, El Dorado National Park, California. June –August of 2001, 2002 and August 2003. Served as a counselor for children ranging from eight to eighteen. Responsibilities included ropes course leader, coordinator of Counselor In Training (C.I.T.) program, which culminated in a managed apprenticeship for high school seniors. Also served as coordinator of the camper in leadership training (C.I.L.T.) program preparing 14-15 year old campers for a three day camper led hike through Desolation Wilderness in El Dorado National Park.

Moses J. Cesar: Frugal Foodies was created in June, 2005 by J Moses Ceaser. When he’s not having strangers over for dinner, Moses is a documentary photographer, committed to social justice storytelling and exposing the extraordinary in the ordinary. He also runs a photo booth business called Fotomio. As mentioned above, Moses founded and used to run a small Oakland-based nonprofit called DiversityWorks, dedicated to community-building and anti-oppression activism with young people.

Moses has had no formal training in cooking, but he did grow up in a household where home cooked meals were the norm and fresh vegetables were grown in the garden. His first exposure to cooking came through a 3-week home economics class in the 7th grade where he lost a bet to Greg Dale about whether hot or cold water dried faster. Later that year, he helped his mom make hundreds of blintzes for his Bar Mitzvah and from that point on, he was off and running.

Rarely do Moses’ concoctions turn out the same twice as he very infrequently cooks from recipes and preaches adventure in the kitchen. His house is filled with jars and jars of staples and spices, yet no measuring cups or spoons. His favorite foods are stone fruit and all things fried and his super power is the ability to taste something he likes in a restaurant (also an infrequent occurrence) and recreate it almost perfectly at home.

Moses aspires to open up a restaurant one day in the future, specializing in recycled food.

Dana Harvey(program development) has over 10 years experience in nonprofit management and development in areas of environmental justice, food security, education and economic development. She has over 6 years experience working with multi-stakeholder coalitions and collaboration building. She is the founding organizer of the West Oakland Food Collaborative, and facilitated its strategic planning, resource development and implementation. As the Executive Director of Environmental Justice Institute Ms. Harvey advocates for change through education and collaboration building. EJI currently developed and received a Cal Trans Environmental Justice Grant in partnership with Alameda County Public Health Department – the first transportation grant ever awarded to the public health department.

As the Interim Director of Mandela MarketPlace Inc. Ms. Harvey guides the development and growth of a small business incubator that sets an alternative model for wealth and health empowerment in West Oakland. MMPlace currently supports the development of Oakland Food Connection, 200 Mile Produce & Food Distribution, Mandela Foods Cooperative, and Commission on Aging Senior Market Booth program. She is part time faculty member at a Merritt college, where she teaches project based courses on food security and is developing an Environmental Justice certificate program. Ms. Harvey served a 3-year term as one of the initial Steering Committee members on the California Food and Justice Coalition. Ms. Harvey holds an undergraduate degree in Conservation Ecology with a minor in Forestry and Natural Resource Economics, and Masters of Science degree in Soil Science from UC Berkeley.

Past Directors, current advisors:

Michael Starkey(fundraising, research) is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley. He has worked as an engineer, analyst, farmer, and educator. Michael received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Brown University in Providence, RI and an M.S., also in mechanical engineering, from Union University in Schenectady, NY. Over the past decade, he has become increasingly involved in the movement for community supported agriculture (CSA) and small scale organic farming.

His involvement began when he helped his parents join a CSA in New York State, volunteering on the farm and in distribution. He has since worked on an organic farm in Georgia as a farmer and as an instructor in a youth leadership program. Michael has worked with the Regional Farm and Food Project in Troy, NY, an organization which supports small farmers by connecting them to local opportunities for agricultural self-sufficiency.

More recently, Michael has worked for Redefining Progress, a progressive think tank located in Oakland, CA. He is a board member of the Black Graduate Students Association at UC Berkeley and has recently been invited to join the board of the Ma'at Youth Academy, an environmental education and youth empowerment organization in Richmond, CA. Currently, he is a teaching assistant for a course in American environmental and cultural history.

Matthew Powell (nonprofit management, research) is Chair of the History Department at Diablo Valley College where he teaches African American and United States History. He holds degrees in Religious Studies and Social Science and has studied with distinguished scholar of Hinduism George Williams. Powell took his MA in History of US West from the University of New Mexico where he studied with Elizabeth Jameson. He is a doctoral candidate in Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Davis. Powell has also studied at the Universite de Chiekh Anta Diop in Senegal, West Africa, at the Universidad de Havana in Havana, Cuba, and in Guatemala and Venezuela. He has served on the Board of Directors for DiversityWorks, an Oakland-based non-profit that teaches youth to be peer educators. Powell has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga for 8 years and is committed to a lifelong Jujitsu practice.