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Urban Greens Co-op Market, 93 Cranston Street, Providence, RI 02907 | 401-273-0362 | Serving Rhode Islanders Since 2019
Derek has lived in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence since moving there from the East Side in 2017 with his wife Tiffany and their assortment of aging animals. He came to Providence to finish his graduate degree in philosophy and has spent the last decade teaching about theories of ethics, values, rights, and justice. Because talk alone is not enough, he has also found ways to work with those doing the work necessary to realize those values in our community. He has cultivated and harvested food for local hunger relief agencies with Hope’s Harvest and at Westbay Farm, and he has helped to distribute food directly to food pantry guests at the Olneyville Food Center. Derek has also served as an organizer of the Rhode Island High School Ethics Bowl and as a facilitator of family support programs with NAMI Rhode Island. Having transitioned out of academia, he now works as a housing navigator with Family Service of Rhode Island.
Through his professional and volunteer work, Derek has experience communicating, building relationships, and working effectively with people from a diverse array of personal, educational, and professional backgrounds. He hopes that these skills will make him a valuable addition to the board and that serving on the board will allow him to expand his knowledge of and engagement with the local food system.
Brittany is a native Rhode Islander and long term fangirl of Urban Greens. After graduating from The New School with degrees in Integrated Design (BFA, 2019) and Visual Storytelling (BS, 2019), she moved home amid the pandemic and became a cashier at the Co-Op. Working at Urban Greens at that time became pivotal in helping her reconnect with Providence and the blooming food access and sustainability initiatives in the state. As she’s started her career beyond Urban Greens, she’s sought to bring her creative skillset to climate and social justice organizations in the New England region and has found a particular passion in the food-access ecosystem. In her current role at The Greater Boston Food Bank, Brittany facilitates Direct Response marketing initiatives, working to raise funds to help power the food bank’s network of 600 partner agencies across Eastern Massachusetts.
While she works in Boston, she’s eager to bring this ethos back home and is hoping to help Urban Greens develop financial sustainability while maintaining the mission of offering nutritious and affordable food. As a potential Board Member, Brittany is excited to be more deeply engaged with the Co-Op community from staff to vendors to member-owners, whether that be through events, fundraisers, or just shopping! She firmly believes that nutritious food is a human right and it always tastes better when it is connected to the neighbors and land around us.
I’m a designer, social scientist, and a new(ish) neighbor in Federal Hill. I’m hoping to contribute my skills in facilitation and framing ambiguous problems to the challenges that the Urban Greens Board will tackle over the next few years.
With my now-husband, Lee-Sean Huang, I founded and have run Foossa, a service design practice. Some highlights: redesigning public services in NYC that have helped hundreds of thousands of primarily low-income New Yorkers save money and time, storytelling and experience design with the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda to help tell the story of the genocide and post-genocide reconstruction, and conducting research on the financial pressures faced by families with children undergoing cancer treatment in order to lighten the burdens that these families have to shoulder.
These days, I’m mostly working on a PhD at MIT, where I study the design of complex social systems and emerging technologies in computing and space exploration.
Before moving to Providence, I’d spent most of my life in New York. I served on my local community board (the most local level of local government) in Manhattan, and I was also a trustee of the NYC chapter of the Awesome Foundation, an organization that makes monthly microgrants to support creative projects in the community.
When we’re not avoiding copious amounts of imaginary lava on the floor, I love reading stories and making up games with my six-year old nephew.
Ellen lives in Hope, Rhode Island, which is where she was born and grew up. Ellen works at Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) and splits the workweek evenly between running youth programming in Providence and farming at City Farm, the Land Trust’s market and demonstration farm. Ellen also currently serves on their town’s Sustainability Initiatives Committee. Their work at SCLT has grounded Ellen in local food systems, especially in the neighborhoods surrounding Urban Greens. She has built a strong understanding of food growing in many forms, food access programs, grant writing, working with young people, and the importance of communication about equitable, local food systems with community members. Serving on a municipal sustainability committee as well as doing regenerative farm work also has Ellen thinking long term about how to protect the environment and our expansive human and more-than-human community. Ellen is excited about the opportunity to serve on the Board and dig more deeply into the distribution phase of the food system, especially ways to make it more equitable for both producers and consumers. You can often find Ellen with friends out in the woods, in a body of water, or cooking and baking with seasonal produce.
Francesca has lived in Providence and been part of the RI food and farm community since 2017. She currently works as Program Coordinator for the Conservation Law Foundation’s Legal Food Hub, where she connects farmers, food entrepreneurs, and food and farm organizations to free legal assistance. Francesca also co-leads the Young Farmer Network and has previously worked for Doors Open RI, the URI Master Gardener Program, and PARL.
Francesca joined the Urban Greens Justice/Equity Committee as a non-board member in 2020, served as committee Co-Chair in 2022, and joined the board as an appointed board member in early 2023. In addition to her background in food systems, Francesca brings to the board experience in program, events, volunteer, and communications management. As a committee and board member, Francesca has co-led the establishment of ongoing member-owner demographic data collection and the implementation of a grant to provide free Food For All memberships to low-income neighbors of the store. In May she served as board point person for the store’s first-ever member drive, which resulted in over 80 new memberships. Francesca believes that Urban Greens plays a critical role in Providence as values-driven food retail institution, committed to supporting and serving its neighbors and shoppers.
Francesca lives on the west side with her partner, two cats, and container garden. She is also an interdisciplinary artist and serial crafter with practices in ceramics, embroidery, and dance.
Jazandra is a born Rhode Islander, growing up in Providence and living on the South Side. Jazandra is currently a Program and Governance Steward for the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee where they have served as a committee member since 2018, organizing and facilitating community-led policies and practices towards a Just Providence.
Their background and passion for culinary arts and their care for local food systems, regenerative agriculture, and co-operative economics informs all of their work, and they look forward to bringing this care along with their community engagement skills to the Urban Greens Board and hope to help foster equitable growth for the store and the surrounding communities. In their free time you can find them outside in their garden, rollerskating in the park, by the water, or cooking up some other creative whim.
Jena is from Newport, Rhode Island. She attended Mount Holyoke College and Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, then completed a PhD in modern European history at the University of Virginia. After teaching at Mount Holyoke College and then at Western Michigan University, she packed up her cats and her ferrets and moved back to Rhode Island, and now lives on Providence’s West Side.
To keep her houseful of special needs rescue pets in their accustomed lifestyle, she toils as a copyeditor and proofreader. She is on the governing board of Bell Street Chapel, a Reiki master and a hospice volunteer with her dog, Dexter.
Leon has lived in the Reservoir triangle area of Providence for the last 3 years with his wife, Erin, and prior to that they lived in Elmwood for about 8 years. Leon has owned and operated a small landscaping business for the last ten years and has also worked in customer service. He is also very involved in the Providence community, and as an empty nester, is always looking to advocate for his community with his wife. Leon has been a 3x elected president of the Parent Advisory council for the Providence school board and is the Community Liaison for Faith Community Church in Providence. As someone who has always enjoyed helping others and building community, Leon also enjoys running a PRIDE in Providence group and cable access show called Urban Greens.
Leon has previously worked with the General Manager to promote Urban Greens on his cable access show, and he loved attending Fish and Chip Fridays at the store. Leon is interested in serving on the board to promote the mission of Urban Greens and ensure his community has access to healthy foods and nutrition. He also wants to ensure people of color are represented in Urban Greens and that Urban Greens’ mission serves people of color.
I proudly hail from Boston but decided to make Rhode Island my home in 2009 after spending a few years in North Carolina. As of 2015, I’ve been enjoying life with my three remarkable dogs in the Charles neighborhood of Providence.
My professional journey has taken me through various industries, all centered on providing excellent customer service and efficient operations. In my current role as an operations consultant, I bring extensive experience in project management, process design, and business controls to the table.
I’m passionate about joining the board to apply my expertise and make a meaningful contribution by facilitating accessible options for others. My interests lie in community outreach and promoting education on sustainable food systems and urban farming.
When I’m not immersed in nature, tending to my garden, hiking, cycling, or exploring beautiful Providence with my furry companions, you’ll find me in my workshop. There, I channel my creativity into crafting projects using wood, clay, metal, and repurposed materials.
After living in Washington Park, the West End, Olneyville, Smith Hill and College Hill over the past 20 years, Philip now lives in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence. He works at Harvard Medical School in Harvard Catalyst’s informatics department. This work has helped him develop strong project management and team building skills that have been useful during his time on the Urban Greens board. He has also volunteered over the years with many agricultural and local food system businesses and nonprofits, most recently joining the board of the Neighboring Food Co-ops Association, an organization that supports food co-ops across the northeast region.
Philip is currently vice chair of the UG board, and was one of the core board members involved in getting the co-op open: leading the effort to successfully raise over $1 million in startup capital, as well as spearheading community outreach and many member drive efforts prior to the store’s opening. Since the co-op opened in 2019, Philip has focused on the board’s development through recruitment and governance, as well as building-out management structures for the relationship between the board and the General Manager. Philip is excited to be nominated for an additional term to support the cultivation of new board leadership and work towards the long term stability of the co-op.
Philip has recently been reigniting his longtime appreciation of playgrounds and free jazz–spending many hours enjoying both of these along with his 2 year old son.
I have been a Providence resident with my partner Susan since the early 90’s. Our daughter Savanna went to high school at Classical down the street from the coop.
Coops have been a lot of what I have done for the last 40 years. In 1986 I co-founded Equal Exchange a worker coop alternative trade organization. I am one of two ceo’s/presidents of Equal Exchange. This work supporting small farmers and trying to create more fairness in the market challenges and inspires still today.
On the consumer coop level I spent several years on the board of what was then Cambridge Food Coop and was part of the board that merged with Boston Coop to create a larger coop (Harvest Coop) that worked for another decade plus and then failed.
I want to see Urban Greens work through our significant challenges and be here for the long term. I ask for your support and if elected I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible.
Sam moved from New York City to Providence seven years ago and immediately fell in love with the West End. So much so that he convinced his now-wife, Jenny, and parents, Carole and Steve, to leave NYC and join him here. In addition to making his home here, Sam also teaches middle school in the West End neighborhood and finds a great deal of meaning in rooting his work within the context of his chosen community.
Before his recent return to teaching, Sam worked for the Providence Public School District and the State of Rhode Island Departments of Education and Human Services where his work focused primarily on system improvement, community-based decision-making, community-led budgeting, program design and evaluation, and grant management and oversight. He looks forward to leveraging his passion for cooperative ownership and governance and background in project management, community empowerment, and board relations in service of Urban Green’s member-owners and shoppers.
Prior to his work in education, Sam was the director of marketing for a successful start-up, a field organizer for a successful presidential campaign, and an Emmy-nominated comedy writer. He still thinks he’s pretty funny.
I have resided in the Olneyville area of Providence for the last 4 years, before that I resided in the Central Falls/ Pawtucket area for 10 years. But I was born and raised in Bronx, New York, where I was first exposed to cooperative food stores.
Currently I volunteer as co-chair of the communications teams of a nonprofit cooperative, Co-op Rhody, to establish and unionize cooperative dispensaries in Rhode Island and provide entrepreneurship for diverse communities that have been disproportionately affected by the “War on Drugs.” I manage the social media presence highlighting policy changes, social equity initiatives, and local networking events. Additionally, I’m enrolled in the North RI Conservation District’s Urban Growers Leadership Program 2024, receiving tools, education and resources to enhance and develop farming, gardening and other agricultural skills.
I was lead Clinical Medical Assistant for 5 years at a local primary care center, providing training for onboarding CMAs as well as support liaison between patients, their care teams and physicians.
I proudly advocate through multiple organizations for anti-war, cannabis decriminalization and housing justice policies.
Serving on the board for Urban Greens aligns with my belief that cooperatives are the catalyst to shift our mentality from a capitalistic and individualistic society. Bringing locally grown healthy foods and access to affordable alternatives to my neighbors motivates me.
For fun, I tend to my apartment window box garden of tomatoes and peppers; watch movies with my teen son, Owyn; and enjoy a good radical book club.
