Abby Khodayari is a Senior Staff Attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid’s Richmond office, where she works on a Medical-Legal Partnership focused on addressing social determinants of health, specifically access to safe and affordable housing. She represents tenants in eviction cases, subsidized housing voucher terminations, and housing discrimination complaints; and has represented clients in General Assistance and Social Security appeals. Prior to attending law school in 2013, she was a staff member at The RYSE Youth Center, in their Education and Career Department. She is now a proud Richmond resident and is excited to work more closely with Urban Tilth. Outside of work she can be found hiking, camping, coaching group fitness in at Plank and Power in El Cerrito, or hanging out with her dog Bennie.

Christy is an urban and regional planning professional. She has 15+ years of experience in housing and land use planning, policy advocacy, and community organizing. Her most recent role was Project Manager of The Association of Bay Area Governments’ (ABAG) Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AB 686) technical assistance program. She lead the development of trainings, resource guides, policy toolkits, and a wide variety of data and analysis metrics for evaluating segregation, displacement, and racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty in the Bay Area. Prior to that role, she served as a planning liaison and coordinator between jurisdiction planners, civic- and community-based stakeholders to advance equitable housing, land use and transportation growth strategies as envisioned in the Bay Area’s regional plan, Plan Bay Area 2050. Her love of Richmond began as the coordinator of the Richmond Equitable Development Initiative (REDI), which brought together a coalition of community-based groups that campaigned and achieved passage of the State’s first Health Element in a municipal General Plan.

She is a creative design- and systems-thinker who brings a strong background in stakeholder engagement; project and grant management; housing & land use policy; data collection and analysis; facilitation and holding space with marginalized groups, and building story narrative.

She enjoys road trips, the outdoors, a nice run along the Bay and her vipassana meditation practice. She holds a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cal Poly Pomona.

Tania Pulido was born and raised in Richmond California. She was employed by Urban Tilth for 9 years before moving on to become the Community Services Coordinator for the Community Housing Development Corporation. Her 9 years of experience working within Urban Tilth gives her a unique perspective on the Urban Tilth board. For ten years Tania has committed her personal life and career to food justice, community journalism, youth development, and community organizing in Richmond. As a San Pablo and Richmond native, and now Richmond homeowner, she is rooted and invested in the future of Richmond.

Alfonso Leon is a local Richmond resident and has been actively involved in the community for over 10 years. Through rejuvenation projects, community development, and urban gardening he’s seen the impact he’s made in the community change vastly. His journey began when he was a teenager working with Earth Team as a volunteer in a grassroots project called, Aqua Team where he learned about creek restoration, community engagement, and urban development.

From there, he began taking classes at Richmond High, Urban Agriculture is where he learned the basics of gardening, sustainability through permaculture, and social resiliency through the act of growing food. After graduating from high school, he then worked at Urban Tilth’s Adams Crest Farm, and then eventually returned to the Richmond High site where he completed his full circle from being a student to assisting teaching the class. Marketing was also a passion where he worked on various projects with Urban Tilth in increasing it’s local Catahoula Market Stand presence, product development, and canvassing. He is one of the recent additions to the members of Urban Tilth’s board.

Heather Blackie is an agricultural Jedi. She consults in a wide range of regenerative agriculture practices, from biodynamic farming, composting, rotational grazing and fencing, and helping foundations skillfully invest in sustainable agriculture. She is a farmer and co-owners of Quiet Valley Farm in Nicasio, CA.

Dana Perls is the senior food and technology campaigner with Friends of the Earth, and leads the Food and Agriculture team’s international and national regulatory and market campaigns on biotechnology and genetic engineering. Prior to joining Friends of the Earth, she was the Northern California community organizer with Pesticide Watch, where she led regional campaigns to ban or regulate toxic pesticides used in agriculture. Dana brings a strong background in grassroots campaign organizing and environmental policy and combines them with her commitment to environmental justice. She has also worked on campaigns focused on water contamination to human rights to water in Panama where she served as a Peace Corps volunteer. Dana holds a Masters in City Planning from U.C. Berkeley in CA, and a B.A. from Cornell University.