Co-founder

Jocelyn’s passion for seasonal food, social justice, creativity, and community is rooted in a childhood spent on the Kansas plains. Her family would sing a song before sharing a soulful meal. Since then, Jocelyn has practiced law, taught environmental science and ethics, become a yoga instructor, and created performance and visual art. Her inspiring international experiences include serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa and teaching in an ecovillage in Southern India. Jocelyn has presented on the principles of community nourishment at Court Bouillon in Southern France and back home in Oakland for the Fusion of Food and Yoga series at Anasa Yoga. She enjoys collaborating with a wide range of wonderful people and organizations including People’s Community Market, BALLE, Bryant Terry, Life is Living, Impact HUB Oakland, MOAD, Kitchen Table Advisors, NUMI Tea, YES!, and Late Nite Art. She is beginning her fourth year of full hearted cooking. Jocelyn founded JUSTUS KITCHEN to continue to create food experiences that inspire people to reconnect with themselves, the earth, and one another. And she still begins every meal with a song. justuskitchen.com

Photo Credit: Molly DeCoudreaux

Co-founder

Sita is an artist, writer, and educator who uses art as a strategy to connect memory and history with the urgent social issues of our time. South Asian and Japanese Latin American, Sita was born and raised in Los Angeles, Tongva Land, and is based in Oakland, Ohlone Land. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Scripps College, an M.F.A. in interdisciplinary art and an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts (CCA). Sita has exhibited and collaborated in the US, Holland, Ireland, Hong Kong, and Mexico. She has been the Scholar in Residence at the Center for Art and Public Life at CCA where she teaches a course called “A Taste of Resistance” in Diversity Studies. A recipient of the Art Matters Grant and a Fleishhacker Eureka fellow, her first book about art and creativity is forthcoming from Kaya Press. sitabhaumik.com

Photo Credit: Molly DeCoudreaux

Co-founder

Saqib learned the importance of food from his grandmother's hands. Today, he is a chef and community organizer who imagines and supports new food systems. With revolutionary love from the kitchen to the streets, Saqib’s experience is rooted in social justice movement building and political education. Saqib started the People's Kitchen in 2007 as a grassroots organizing project and alternative restaurant model to fine-dining restaurant culture. He trained as a chef in Aix-en-Provence, France and has helped open and manage restaurants throughout California. Saqib is a community organizer with a long history of intersectional grassroots organizing. Working deeply in the food justice field, Saqib spent three years with groundbreaking food justice organization People’s Grocery. He developed and managed the social enterprise incubator program and food justice fellowship. Saqib worked with The Restaurant Opportunities Center as the national manager of the COLORS restaurants located in Detroit and NYC. Focused on decolonization through food, he has presented his work at Stanford University, The University of Oregon, UC Davis and UC Berkeley, and York University in Toronto. Most recently, he and his partner Norma Listman opened Masala y Maiz in Mexico City. saqibkeval.com

Photo Credit: Molly DeCoudreaux

PKC Crew Co-founder

Currently residing in Humboldt County, Sarai is a poet, scholar, educator, facilitator, and model from across California. She holds a Masters Degree from San Francisco in the Area of Education: Equity and Social Justice where she focused on liberatory and transformational learning experiences for students. For more than ten years she has been connected in many ways with People’s Kitchen Collective. She has served as a conceptual partner for events, as well as front of house and logistics capacities during Life is Living, the STREETS! meal, and other gatherings. She is presently facilitating groups with PKC around Octavia E. Butler source material for their upcoming project. Sarai is honored to contribute to the conversation around food justice with PKC through intentional focus on personal growth and community building. Her most recent publication appears in When We Exhale: An Anthology of Black Women Rooted In Ancestral Medicine from Black Freighter Press. Her work can also be found in Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology or Writers on Black Liberation. Sarai loves reading, lizards, walking in the forest, and catching the sunrise. She hopes with love that there has been something beautiful about your day. sadbitch.solutions

PKC Crew Co-founder and EARTH SEED Creative Lead

Hải’s family and ancestors are from villages in southern Việt Nam - Mỹ Tho and Chợ Gạo. Hải identifies as a queer 2nd generation diasporic Việt passionate about traditional food(ways), home(land), and soulful adventures with good people and good food. A guiding light proverb in Hải's journey towards justice & community organizing is “Một cây làm chẳng nên non, ba cây chụm lại nên hòn núi cao”. It translates to one tree provides little strength, three trees together allow us to reach high mountains - that when we come together, we can achieve anything and change the world.

Hải brings extensive experience in the land through farming and backpacking, management experience through the restaurant industry including leadership at the celebrated Reem’s California. Hải is a core member and advisor of QT Việt Cafe Collective, a creative cultural hub dedicated to Queer and Trans Việt liberation. qtvietcafe.com

Photo credit: Lara Aburamadan

Project Coordinator

Natasha is a poet, teaching artist, and project manager. At Youth Speaks, she organized Brave New Voices, the largest international youth poetry festival in the world, and managed campaigns that applied youth voice to changing public conversations about systemic injustices including environmental drivers of type 2 diabetes, educational inequity, and more. Natasha is currently the Artist Mentor Manager at Performing Arts Workshop and co-founder of both The Root Slam and the Write Home Project. natashahuey.com