Who's Participating?

The Let Us Rise Leadership CircleThe Leadership Circle is our primary decision-making body. We meet once per month. Because we believe long-lasting societal transformation will only happen as we each individually transform, we devote the first half of every meeting to personal transformation. More.

Kris Abrams

Convener

Let Us Rise

Kris is the former senior producer of Democracy Now!, a national, independent news program, for which she coordinated the daily newscast, helped lead the program’s dramatic expansion, and reported from around the world. She then moved to Colorado to lead community radio station KGNU’s expansion into Denver. She has studied the liberation movement in South Africa, and recently obtained her certification in peacemaking through the Peacemaker Institute of Colorado. She practices meditation, yoga and loves to hike in the mountains. Email: kris at letusrise dot org

Lisa Durán

Let Us Rise Executive Committee Member

Lisa Durán is the Director of Rights for All People, an immigrant rights organizing project, and a co-founder of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. She is also a member of Colorado Jobs with Justice’s board. She is RAP’s representative to the Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative, comprised of nine leading base-building organizations working to strengthen community organizing in Colorado. She also represents RAP nationally at the Campaign for Community Values, a project of the Center for Community Change (CCC), and at the National Training and Information Center. She is active in the CCC’s Fair Immigration Reform Movement and with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She has a master’s degree in political science and is currently finishing her Masters of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver.

http://www.rap-dpt.org

Wendy Emrich

Co-Founder

Chinook Fund, board member Lambi Fund of Haiti

Wendy Emrich is a third generation Coloradan who has traveled extensively around the world. She is a peace and environmental activist, philanthropist, fundraiser and single mother of two adopted Haitian children. She has helped several organizations get off the ground including an organic farm school, and two grassroots funding organizations, one funding social change in Colorado and another funding environmental groups in developing countries. She currently sits on the board of the Lambi Fund of Haiti.

Sonya Garcia Ulibarri

Let Us Rise Executive Committee Member

Sonya Garcia-Ulibarri is the Executive Director for YouthBiz, Inc., a Denver-based youth development agency. With a passion for community-based work and a love of fundraising, Sonya has been working in nonprofit sector for over ten years. After receiving degrees in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Colorado at Denver, she spent six years with the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) working to strengthen the capacity of grassroots social justice organizations across the country. Sonya is an experienced fundraiser, trainer, and consultant and currently serves as Board member for several Denver-based organizations She has a life-long commitment to working toward social change.

Gabriel Guillaume

Let Us Rise Executive Committee Member

Gabriel is the Executive Director of the Community Resource Center, an organization he has worked with for 9 years, assisting small community groups and nonprofits to strengthen their capacity in the areas of advocacy, constituency building, strategic planning, and community organizing. Some of the issues he has worked with include affordable housing, public education, zoning, rural health care, and community building in neighborhoods. Gabriel is dedicated to the sustainable development of organizations committed to serving people often left out of and ignored in decision making processes. Gabriel was born in London, England and raised in both Santa Fe, New Mexico and Naples, Florida.

http://www.crcamerica.org

Nancy Hernández

Program Officer

Hispanic Scholarship Fund

A first generation, bilingual woman, Nancy is originally from El Paso, Texas. Currently a Program Officer with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, she has also worked at Colorado College, the Gill Foundation, La Clinica Tepeyac, and the Colorado Parent Information and Resource Center. Nancy has a B.A. in Philosophy from Colorado College and earned a Master’s in Nonprofit Management at Regis University as a Colorado Trust Fellow in 2005. She volunteers for multiple organizations in her spare time.

http://www.hsf.net

Rev. Paul Kottke

Let Us Rise Executive Committee Member

Rev. Paul Kottke serves as senior pastor at University Park United Methodist Church and is the co-founder of the interfaith Forum for Religion and Society of the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. Some of his previous positions include founding Executive Director, Denver Urban Ministries, Director of Development, Iliff School of Theology, and Pastor of Warren United Methodist Church. His undergraduate degrees are in Philosophy and English, and he obtained his Masters of Divinity from Iliff.

http://www.universityparkumc.org

Staff

Mu Son Chi

Outreach and Programs Director

Mu Son's family immigrated to the U.S. when he was two years old from Seoul, South Korea. He grew up in the small town of Temple, Texas and has lived in Colorado for the last 20 years. He began his community work with Ethical Trade Action Group (E-TAG), has served on the local steering committee for Jobs with Justice and on the board of SweatFree Communities a national anti-sweatshop organization. Mu Son draws his inspiration from work with the community at organizations like Centro Humanitario, Chinook Fund, Denver Fair Food, FreeSpeech TV, Derailer Bicycle Collective and Let Us Rise. email: muson(at)letusrise.org phone: 720-570-4908

Jes Ward

Vision Organizing Director

Jes Ward is the director of the Rocky Mountain PeaceJam affiliate office. She also serves as the coordinator of PeaceJam's Global Call to Action (GCA)--an effort to mobilize the creation of 1 billion projects addressing the most pressing issues of our time. She has been the lead coordinator for both of PeaceJam's GCA conferences which have been attended by over 4,000 youth and 10 Nobel Peace Laureates. Personally, Jes is deeply committed to family and loves everything that it encompasses. She is also a magician (watch out!) and believes deeply in the healing properties of play.

Advisory Circle

This Circle is for people who provide strategic support to The People's Campaign, but cannot commit to attending monthly meetings.

Rebecca Arno

Vice President of Communications

Denver Foundation

Rebecca is Vice President of Communications for The Denver Foundation, a community foundation serving the seven-county Metro Denver area. She has worked in the nonprofit and foundation sectors in Denver and the San Francisco Bay Area, with responsibility for communications, donor relations, and fundraising. Prior to her work with The Denver Foundation, Rebecca was communications manager for Peninsula Community Foundation in San Mateo, CA and Vice President of Communications for The Daniels Fund. Rebecca currently serves on the boards of the Colorado Nonprofit Association and the Communications Network.

http://www.denverfoundation.org

Terrance Campbell

Vision Organizer

Terrance has lived in Denver his whole life. He is an adventurous person, and is always determined for whatever he is doing in life. He loves sports, skateboarding, making music and is learning to play guitar and how to write hip-hop and reggae music. He would love to have a career in music or would like to be a community organizer. Terrance is part of a team of Let Us Rise Vision Organizers, employed through a youth employment program at YouthBiz.

Michelle Duroh

Vision Organizer

Michelle is currently a student at CSU-Pueblo. She loves nothing more than seeing babies and kids smiling and laughing. She has 7 of the most wonderful GOD children in the world and the best girlfriend in the world. After college she would like to own a non-profit day-care for infants and toddlers because she absolutely adores children! Michelle is part of a team of Let Us Rise Vision Organizers, employed through a youth employment program at YouthBiz.

Ashara Ekundayo

Founder and Director

Pan African Arts Society, producer Pan African Film Festival and Café Nuba

Ashara Ekundayo is an award-winning “cultural Jedi” who explores the dynamics of urban life and identity through her consulting company, BluBlak Media and the non-profit organization she founded, the Pan African Arts Society. Her projects include the nationally broadcast, “Café Nuba,” a monthly spoken-word showcase, and www.podslam.org, a new-media experiment using slam poetry to address challenges such as genocide, homophobia and racism while celebrating the diversity of being and the divine nature of living. She is currently the on-air host for Freespeech TV’s “The Activist Studio.”

http://www.panafricanarts.org

Jordan Garcia

Immigrant Rights Organizer

American Friends Service Committee; co-chair, Chinook Grantmaking Committee

Jordan Garcia s an Immigrant Rights Organizer with Coloradans For Immigrant Rights, a project of the American Friends Service Committee. He serves as the chair of the board of directors for the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, ending violence within and against the LGBTQ community and volunteers for their 24-hour crisis hotline. He also sit on the boards of the Chinook Fund and the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, and is a member of the Denver Mayor’s LGBTQ Commission.

http://www.afsc.org/central/ImmigrantRights/immigrant-rights.htm

Jamie Laurie (aka Jonny 5)

Lyricist

The Flobots

Jonny 5 (Jamie Laurie) has been writing and performing raps since 1996. He is a lead vocalist with the Denver-based band Flobots, and a founding member of Flobots.org, a non-profit organization integrating music and activism. After graduating from Brown University, he worked for three years in the field of youth development as an Americorps *VISTA. Returning to Denver in 2004, he created a voter engagement campaign and worked as a mentoring/tutoring coordinator at East High School. He enjoys learning new languages and currently speaks and writes various amounts of English, Spanish, Japanese, ASL, French, Arabic, and Mandarin. The Flobots provided instrumentals for the homepage video on this site.

http://flobots.org

Indra Lusero

Let Us Rise Executive Committee Member

Indra Lusero is a mother, a writer, a doula, the Assistant Director of the Palm Center, and a law student at the University of Denver. Her practice is based on compassion, inspiration, and deep listening, with particular attention to the most marginalized voices. She wrote and widely performed a one-woman show called “impossible body.” Indra’s experience identifying as a queer, Chicana warrior-poet has put her on the fringes many times, a position that informs her resistance to the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally accepted, and the merely safe.

Carol Mehesy

Executive Director

Flobots.org

Carol Mehesy is the Executive Director of Flobots.org, a non-profit dedicated to creating a community of music fans actively engaged in social change. Prior to this, Carol was the Vice President of Programs at the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children, an organization dedicated to creating to creating policies and programs that are supportive for vulnerable families and children. Carol has over 15 years experience in the non-profit field and firmly believes that the issues facing our communities can only be solved by bringing people together to address them by creating a collective and hopeful vision.

http://www.flobots.org

Vanessa Quintana

Vision Organizer

Vanessa is a young Chicana woman striving for success and to bring opportunity to Latinos. She is the youngest of the four children in her family. She grew up in the beautiful neighborhood of East Denver, which has molded her to be the wonderful dedicated person she is. Vanessa graduated from Colorado High School Charter as the President and Peer Leader. She is going to attend Hastings College in Nebraska to pursue a degree titled Peace, Justice and Social Change with a minor in Communications. With this degree she plans to give back to her community by opening self-improvement centers in East Denver. It will be a positive outlet that will offer youth assistance in: mentoring, tutoring, scholarships, internships, counseling, recreation, voting, health, job readiness skills and any other way that will better equip the youth to succeed in life. Vanessa values knowledge and the ability to inspire! Vanessa is part of a team of Let Us Rise Vision Organizers, employed through a youth employment program at YouthBiz.

Media Team

Henry Ansbacher

Georgina Guidotti

Editor & Camera Operator

Little Voice Productions

Georgina has made a career as a Video Editor and Camera Operator in the Denver area for over a decade, and has been with Little Voice since 2002. As a member of the Little Voice team, she strives to use her video skills as a way to bridge her interests in social consciousness and activism with her passion for filmmaking. This entails working directly within the community and with organizations to document their work and help them tell their story with integrity, creativity, and professionalism. Georgina enjoys playing music, traveling, the great outdoors, and is in love with Colorado.

http://www.littlevoice.org

Tony Shawcross

Founder and Executive Director

Deproduction

After graduating with a degree in marketing and business administration from the University of Colorado, Tony worked briefly in marketing for the IT industry before leaving to focus on socially relevant video production, working with Little Voice Productions, the Colorado State House of Representatives, the Pan African Arts Society, and Free Speech TV, among others. Tony has presented over 100 media education courses with various non-profits and at conferences, schools and universities. Tony is also an experienced video producer with hundreds of films and videos produced for local and national television, film festivals, and community screenings. Deproduction edited the videos for this site.

http://www.denveropenmedia.org

Julie Speer Hunniford

Executive Director & Co-Founder

Little Voice Productions

Julie is an award-winning producer/director and has been creating digital video productions for 15 years, most notably in the nonprofit sector. A lifelong student of “emotional intelligence”, she puts a strong emphasis on emotions and the human spirit in her work. Recent credits include Emmy-nominated “Sweet Ambition” and “Haiti’s Small Miracles” (both aired on PBS and classrooms around the country), and award-winning video campaigns for over 100 local, national and international nonprofits. Julie believes that social change happens when people overcome their fears and work together from a place of love and compassion. Her company, Little Voice Productions, www.littlevoice.org, produced the videos for this site, and donated much of their time.

http://www.littlevoice.org

Web and Design Team

Peju Alawusa

Sharee Dieringer

Graphic Designer

Civic Pixel

Brian Hiatt

Web Programmer

Civic Pixel

Here are the organizations and people who have held visioning salons:

Community Resource Center 09/17/2009 View

Coloradans for Immigrant Rights (Mini-Vision) 09/06/2009 View