Alyssa Munoz is a community organizer and educator. She became involved in community activism for the Latinx community through her work as a core member of Fuerza Colectiva. In her professional career, she supports traditionally marginalized students in navigating higher education and recently completed her Masters in Student Development at Seattle University.

What brings her to CLI is her passion to make positive change and her belief that this can be done through local policy. She hopes that the knowledge gained from CLI can help her navigate boards related to affordable housing, immigration reform, racial justice advocacy and similar issues that impact marginalized communities.

Dre Say is multiracial (Chinese/Filipin@/White), queer, and loves to work with people. They grew up in the Bay Area but also lived in Texas and in Boston, Massachusetts, where they received a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and Religion at Boston University. Dre moved to Seattle a few years ago and hopes to honor the land and the people through their work in environmental and racial justice. They became passionate about the intersection of environmental and racial justice through their experiences in Ecuador and by volunteering at Got Green in Seattle.

Their favorite activities are community organizing, working with youth and students, and reading.  They can be found eating dim sum or buying fresh fruits and vegetables at a local Farmer’s Market.

Cinthia Vazquez (she/her) is currently the Community Engagement Manager at the Community Center for Education Results (CCER), where she leads and supports various community engagement efforts and strategies. Her drive to bring equity to our education system began when she worked with Communities in Schools of Lakewood. Witnessing the day-to-day education disparities among immigrant, low-income, and students of color taught her the importance of pursuing systemic solutions crafted by those most directly impacted by the problem.

She was born in Mexico, immigrated to Washington State at the age of six, and currently resides in Seattle. Her past experience includes being the Fellowship Coordinator at the Washington Bus, a youth-led nonprofit focused on youth civic engagement, a Legislative Assistant to Washington State Representative Laurie Jinkins, and community organizer with the Washington Dream Coalition, an undocumented and youth-led immigrant advocacy organization. With these experiences, Cinthia believes in the importance of people-centered movements aimed at dismantle systems of oppression. In her free time Cinthia enjoys outdoor activities that connect her to mother-earth.

Claudia Janeth Linares-Orellana (she/her) is a Los Angeles born and raised Salvadoran. Claudia moved to Washington state in 2011, and began sprouting roots throughout South King County. Currently, she is a graduate student in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her concentration is in Children, Youth and Families with a Latinx Specialization. She is part of the Northwest Leaders in Behavioral Health Program and co-community engagement leader of the UW Colectiva of Latino/a/x Social Workers.

Claudia works as a mental health counselor for Southwest Youth and Family Services and serves families from the Highline and Seattle school districts. She is the founder of C.O.M.I.D.A., a Central American Youth Group that focuses on cultural empowerment with a focus on intergenerational healing. She is a board member of the Federal Way Youth Action Council, part of the Burien Renters Rights Coalition, and nonprofit Amigos Salvadoreños in Seattle.  Her church home is Tacoma First United Methodist Church.

Claudia aims for the de-stigmatization and de-colonization of mental health and advocates for collective healing practices that are grounded in liberation, culture, and spirituality.

E.N. West, affectionately known as "E" (they/E), proudly hails from the DC metropolitan area, by way of Alexandria, Virginia. They graduated from William & Mary with dual degrees in American Studies and Government, and came to the Pacific Northwest two years ago through a service program of the United Church of Christ, where they had the opportunity to organize faith communities in Seattle around housing justice. E deeply believes "we are uninhibited when we know our power" and is committed to co-creating a world where everyone intimately knows how powerful they are and directs that power toward collective liberation.

E feels called to community organizing as both a vocation and way of life, and they are also deeply committed to lifelong leadership formation. To those ends, they’re currently organizing toward a more free world at Surge Reproductive Justice, building nonprofit leadership as a Community Impact Fellow through Rainier Valley Corps, consulting on a living wage campaign with the United Methodist Women, and excited to begin training for public service as a CLI fellow!

In their moments of play and rest, E enjoys reading social justice literature, listening to podcasts (especially those featuring QTPOC), practicing combat sports (boxing and capoeira) and BIPOC-led environmental justice organizing.

Gurdeep Gill is dedicated to uplifting communities of color from low income backgrounds so that they have an increased opportunity to thrive. Growing up in a low-income household herself, she understands how impactful programs and policies can be when it comes to opening up opportunities. Unfortunately, many current programs and policies do not incorporate the experiences of marginalized communities and are thus not as beneficial as they could be. Through CLI, Gurdeep hopes to help change that. With a passion for food justice, education equity, and facilitation, Gurdeep strives to create spaces where individuals can engage in community inquiry to learn about local issues and get involved. This past year, she developed and facilitated her own course at the University of Washington. The course used a social justice lens to understand food insecurity and its impacts on a student’s ability to learn. As a member of this years CLI cohort, she is excited to further develop her leadership skills and learn the tools necessary in order to bring marginalized voices to the table.

Gurdeep holds a Bachelor’s in Philosophy from the University of Washington. She is currently serving on the board of The Common Acre as Co-Secretary. In her free time, you can find Gurdeep farming, cooking with friends, playing board games, or engaging with her community.

Jaden Zwick is an eager young professional from Federal Way, Washington. She is an alumna of Gonzaga University where she double majored in Spanish and sociology with a certificate in leadership studies as an Act Six scholar. Jaden returned to King County after college to work as the Tacoma-Seattle Program Coordinator for the Act Six scholarship program. On the job, she pours her passion for educational equity into the leadership development of high-achieving young people while collaborating on higher education access initiatives.

In her future, she intends to pursue public interest law and advocate for racial equity in her community and beyond. In her free time, Jaden volunteers regularly with children in foster care, serves on the Seattle Human Rights Commission, and can often be found baking treats with her roommates in Columbia City.

Growing up in a family of volunteers (both parents volunteered as teachers at school or church) Jonathan Smith understands the importance of serving the community and people who have helped to shape his story. During the course of his undergraduate work at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Jonathan served in several different capacities, from working with 4^th and 5^th graders in a reading comprehension class, to interning at a Refugee resettlement agency, to engaging middle schoolers through an outreach ministry.

After completing his coursework in 2014, with a degree in Human Services, Jonathan relocated to the Seattle area in the Summer of 2015. Jonathan is currently employed with Bellwether Housing as a Housing Development Associate, helping to create affordable multifamily housing for vulnerable populations throughout the Puget Sound Region. Prior to this, he worked as a Case Manager, Administrative Assistant, and temporary recruiting coordinator at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission. Outside of work, he enjoys exploring new and old music, shopping at thrift stores and spending time with his wife.

As an accredited financial counselor, Julie Tran works with communities to establish financial stability and independence by supporting individuals build confidence in managing their own finances. She has spent the past decade working with nonprofits to connect marginalized communities to resources and remove barriers to education and financial well-being. Inspired by the work her parents have done to help new Vietnamese immigrants, she is motivated to be a community advocate and is interested in learning how to address economic inequalities through policy-making, public financing, and legislation in state and local government.

Julie is a California native holding a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from University of California, Santa Barbara and is currently pursuing a Master of Public Administration degree at University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. She serves on the City of Tacoma’s Human Rights Commission and holds board positions for several local nonprofit agencies.

Kamal Patel is a systems designer working to integrate justice with economics, resource use and ownership, digital technology, and relational community development.  He is a civic designer with Seattle's Office of Economic Development creating systems based solutions to clean energy collaboration, circular economy, and equitable development.  He is also working within circular economy with King County CHOMP where he program manages a small market of small businesses who are using circular economy and upcycling principles in King County.  Kamal also has a design and technology background with large corporate and non-profit clients.

Martha Lucas is a proud Garfield Bulldog and double Husky. Martha has a background in Health Management, Public Health, and is currently a Full Service Insurance Broker and Financial Educator. Ms. Lucas has been a community activist in the African and African American community, since the age of 14 years old and currently works with four non profits: the Tigray Women's Advisory Council, Washington State Coalition of African Community Leaders (WSCACL) Census 2020 Project Manager, and Pathways2Careers.

Martha taught and facilitated a youth run business program for high risk African youth, caucased in the 2016 Presidential Election, promoted health programs for underserved communities at local community festivals, and is passionate about making sure underrepresented communities have access to quality health care, less laborious and higher paying jobs, make better informed education/training decisions, and get the assistance needed to have a voice at designing their neighborhoods and community.

Martha serves on the Seattle Community Involvement Commission.

Mohamed Abdi is a proud Muslim, Somali, African American Leader who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp and raised in Tukwila and Seattle, Washington. He has been an advocate for racial and social justice issues since high school, where he served as a board representative for the Tukwila School District. And as an intentional Servant Leader, his approach in his community work is through a solid, social justice and racial equity lens.

Throughout his leadership experiences, he's really big on youth mentorship at EACS (East African Community Services). He serves as an organizer with the City of Seattle’s Immigrant Family Institute Advisory Board and as a board member in the King County Children and Youth Advisory Board (CYAB).

He is the eldest of 8 children and a first-generation college student attending the University of Washington at Seattle. He is currently completing his university career and hoping to work as an unapologetic advocate in his community.

A native of Edea, Cameroon, Nathalie Suum is currently living in Tukwila, WA and loving the Pacific Northwest.  She earned her Hospitality Management degree from the National Polytechnic College in Bamenda, Cameroon.  She is currently working as a Hospitality Inspector for Springhill Suites in Seattle.

Having grown up in a community where women were often abused and discriminated against regularly, Nathalie is passionate about social justice, as well as widow and orphan issues (housing, schooling and small businesses training). She believes the challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better and safer place.

Nathalie is a life-long learner and looks forward to adding new skills and experience to her list and is honored to join the 2019-2020 CLI cohort on their path to equity and social justice and hopes to serve as a board member to the Tukwila City Council. She enjoys listening to old school music and watching tennis matches.

Nathalie serves on the Tukwila Parks Commission.

Originally from Indianapolis, IN, Tascha R. Johnson moved to Seattle, WA soon after high school graduation, in search of more opportunities for success. However, after working for several years in and around Seattle, she decided to make a career move that she felt would be more meaningful not only for herself, but for surrounding communities. Having previously worked in retail, she really wanted to work with young people in underserved communities to help them realize their dreams, and empower them to take control of their lives in order to overcome economic insecurity on a generational level and decided to return to academia after a 20 year hiatus.

In order to pursue those dreams, Tascha moved to Portland, OR and received her Bachelor’s degree from Portland State University in Public Health in 2016. She is also a recent graduate from the University of Washington School of Social Work where she focused on Administration and Public Policy as it relates to youth and young adults. She is currently the Operations Manager at CHOOSE 180 where she is working to build out a sustainable infrastructure to the programming of this rapidly growing organization, that gives young people who aren’t often afforded second chances, the opportunity to avoid engagement in the criminal legal system. By having their cases diverted, these young people have the chance to expand their skill-building capacity to not only be successful in avoiding future engagement in the criminal legal system, but to be successful in life, thereby effectively disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline.

Traci Harrell has over 25 years of diverse professional experience working for IBM, Disney and Microsoft; yet her true passion and priority is helping others in the Community to overcome the challenges of poverty and inequity that she experienced, to enable everyone to achieve their full potential in life.

Traci founded a new company called, “It's All Bigger Than Me” focused on helping our local Community and Making the World a Better Place.  Her mission: “We use Technology, Community and Positive Psychology to Help Good People Do Great Things”.  Her Vision is: “We Help Turn DREAMS into REALITY…We Turn HOPE into HOW …and We Build on the Power of Purpose, Destiny & Legacy”.

She hosts a LIVE weekly Radio and YouTube Program called, “Bigger Than Me” where she combines the latest in research and engaging interviews with Amazing People who are Living their Best Life and Helping others to do the same.  When asked what she does, Traci says, ‘We Share Stories, Build Community and Elevate Expectations’.  We meet people where they are, and help them achieve goals, to get where they want to be, while fully enjoying the journey of life.

Intentional Living, a Personal Call-To-Action:  Traci believes that NOW is a historic moment in our lifetime that calls for each of us to show up with courage and humility, in a collective effort toward changing the status quo, while building a better future for generations to come.