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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.
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.
Elizabeth is a resident of Elmwood and has lived in the surrounding neighborhoods of Urban Greens for the past five years. She is currently working as a Program Coordinator with Movement Education Outdoors, overseeing the West End Raices youth garden, and as the Coordinator of the Young Farmer Network of Southeastern New England. She is also a steering committee member of the PVD tree plans.
Elizabeth has been lucky enough to hold a variety of experiences working within community-focused environmental and food justice realms through sharing stories, building systems, and creating programming. She is excited to further serve the community through this opportunity to join the Urban Greens board.
Elizabeth has a cat named Rutabaga who will only respond to “Handsome Boy” if called, and she goes absolutely bonkers for frogs.
Eric is a native Rhode Islander and has lived in Providence for 17 years, currently in the Federal Hill neighborhood. He has worked in the coffee industry for nearly two decades with roles in operations, procurement, and quality control. Additionally, he has experience working in grocery and has a good understanding of how a grocery store operates. He is a strong collaborator who is intentional, organized, and open to new ideas. His passion for the community of local food businesses makes him an effective advocate.
The principles of sustainability, community, and access to healthy local food resonate deeply with Eric and he is very excited to jump in wherever he is most needed. He is equally happy applying his skillset towards the success of Urban Greens as well as growing into new skills and experiences as the co-op needs.
In his spare time, Eric is a gym rat, musician, lifelong learner, and poly-reader. He enjoys sports and fine cocktails.
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.
Gian is a lifelong Rhode Islander, who left (for a few years) to attend school in Philly for Food Marketing, but now has lived in the Rumford area of East Providence for the last 11 years with his Wife, Lauren + new son, Giacomo. When not in the kitchen working on his sourdough baking skills, he enjoys Kayaking, going to the beach, & Bike Rides along the East Bay Bike Path.
Gian has been on the board since June 2019, and currently serves as the Treasurer. He has spent the majority of his career in the food industry working for the largest distributor of Natural + Organic Foods in the US and recently switched over to a role in strategy consulting for the Food Industry. He specializes in Category Management, merchandising, and analytics & hopes to continue bringing those skills to the Urban Greens Board.
Gian wants to continue his time on the board to help ensure Urban Greens stays on its current growth trajectory & work to make Urban Greens a shining example of what a Food Co-op can & should be for the community they’re part of.
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.
My two children and I moved to Providence a little over a year ago, after living in Ottawa (Canada), Hanoi (Viet Nam), Jakarta (Indonesia), and Paris (France). Before taking on my job teaching sustainable development at URI, I worked for various research and international organizations working on challenges related to environment and development. I was involved with research on sustainable food systems in Viet Nam, where I experienced the importance food sovereignty in addition to food security. I was thus really excited to find Urban Greens in Providence!
I’m hoping that my project management and fund-raising skills, and experience conducting research with vulnerable communities around the world, will be useful to the Board and help Urban Greens’ mission to offer sustainable, affordable, culturally-relevant and locally-sourced food. I’m most interested in engaging with the Board and members to increase community outreach and promote justice, equity, diversity & inclusion in both staff and sourcing.
My kids and I speak English, French, and Japanese (albeit there are differences in fluency!) and love exploring nature trails and ice cream shops in RI and MA. I make my own kombucha and apple cider, and grow my own sprouts & herbs (with varying levels of success). Integrity and respect for diversity are key values which I promote through my research, teaching and in my personal life.
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 extremely useful during his time on the Urban Greens board. He has also volunteered over the years with a number of agricultural and local food system businesses and nonprofits.
Philip has served on the Urban Greens Board for nearly ten years, and served 2 years as chair. He was one of the core board members involved in getting the co-op open: leading the effort to successfully raise over $1million in startup capital, as well as spearheading community outreach and member drive efforts prior to the store’s opening. Since the co-op opened in 2019, Philip has focused on the board’s internal development through both recruitment and internal governance training, as well as developing management structures for the relationship between the Board and the General Manager. Philip is excited to support the development of current board members and help ensure the long term stability of the co-op.
A strategic communicator, Rebecca Pazienza Bromberg is a public affairs and community relations professional with more than twenty years of experience spanning public, private and non-profit arenas. Most recently Rebecca worked with client Hope & Main on the opening of their downtown Maker’s Market.
Rebecca is a big supporter of Rhode Island’s local food economy. She is a fan of Urban Greens Co-Op and enjoys visiting the market to find unique ingredients and also trying products such as their monthly cheese box.
Rebecca is excited to work with the team and Board of Urban Greens Co-Op to better understand how she can be of service and help tell the story of the Co-Op.
Rebecca is a life-long Rhode Islander who resides in Providence. She and her family enjoy cooking together, traveling to Disney and watching PC basketball games.
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.
Sarah Newkirk has been living on Osamequin Farm in Seekonk MA for the last 6 years after 6 years living in the Armory Park neighborhood of Providence. Sarah co-created and now directs the non-profit project at Osamequin, which centers around sustainable agriculture, shared land use, education, and community. Sarah has spent the last decade+ immersed in food system work as an advocate and organizer, as well as a farmer and land worker. Interspersed with her time on farms and on the boards of NOFA-RI and the Young Farmer Network, she has worked in and around educational spaces to bring our food system into the curriculum. During her time on the Urban Greens Board beginning in 2020, Sarah has co-led the Sustainable Sourcing Committee and worked with store management to set sourcing priorities around produce, animal products, grocery items, and packaging.
Sarah serves as the Secretary of the Urban Greens Board and brings her passion for efficiency to the role. She has been proud to be a part of the evolution of Urban Greens as a Providence institution over the past few years, and looks forward to helping to shape the next chapter for the store with a commitment to its values, its members, and its customer base.
Sarah is experiencing the world with fresh eyes as a new mom and enjoys baking, exploring the beaches and trails of RI, and obsessing over local fruit throughout the spring summer and fall.