To the Grassroots Fund Community, 

I am thrilled to be joining the Grassroots Fund crew and working alongside the members of this talented and dedicated team to bring the organization into this new chapter! I’d like to take this opportunity to share a bit about what brings me here and what drives me in this work. I look forward to meeting many of you and learning more about what brings you to be a part of this community. 

My organizing journey began as a high schooler in Massachusetts, when I became involved in local town politics through a campaign for the creation of a youth center. This experience of local advocacy set me on a path to become involved in a wide range of campaigns for social and environmental justice. I attended Earlham College where I became deeply involved in activism and organizing campaigns that ranged from Fossil Fuel Divestment, workplace unionization, sexual assault survivor advocacy, peace and justice for Palestine, stopping mountaintop removal, and zero waste. I witnessed the power of a strong, collaborative organizing community that was willing to work across many issues to advocate for systemic change and collective justice. 

I graduated in 2014 with a degree in Sociology and Anthropology, a thesis on the Phenomenology of Trash, and a job at a scrappy start-up non-profit. I moved to the New Hampshire seacoast to join the Post-Landfill Action Network (PLAN) team as the organization was just getting off the ground. Little did I know, this chapter would span the next decade of my life.  In 2016 I helped to institute the Co-Director model at PLAN and served in that role for 7+ years. During my time with PLAN, I helped build the organization from a regional project to a national network that shifted the narrative around zero waste from an issue of personal impact to a systemic issue of moving beyond the Linear Consumption Economy. I worked with some amazing people, supported hundreds of college and university campuses on their journey toward zero waste, spoke at events across the country and internationally, and ultimately transitioned PLAN to become a Worker Self-Directed Nonprofit. I continue to support the PLAN team as a member of the board of directors and, as a self-proclaimed trash nerd, I will always hold the mission close to my heart. 

When I decided to move on from my role at PLAN I knew I wanted to do something that would connect me more deeply to my New England community. I was immediately drawn to the Grassroots Fund because of the focus on supporting often overlooked work such as mutual aid and other groups functioning outside of the 501c3 model. I believe deeply in the power of grassroots activism to address a problem from its source in order to build a strong foundation. Community-centered funding models, like the one embodied by the Grassroots Fund, are truly essential to building a fertile foundation upon which collective liberation can grow. 

I am looking forward to supporting the formative work of the organization and meeting the rest of the extended Grassroots Fund community as I get settled into this role. Outside my work, I have built a community in Western Maine with my partner. We have a small farm where we make art, play games, and grow food and flowers with our cats, ducks, and very small dogs. I will wrap up with a quote from poet and trans activist, Alok Vaid-Menon that has greatly informed my approach to
this work over the years: 

“These days the most important work I do as an activist is actually not that glamorous. It’s about entering data in spreadsheets, organizing food for meetings, listening to people’s stories, and calling my mom every single night. And these things are not going to change policy, give me a diploma or an award but I think they are doing the slow work of tearing at the fabric of our culture and this is what I think it’s going to take to change the world.” 

Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you ever want to chat, Faye@grassrootsfund.org. 

Onward & Upward, 

Faye