10am-12pm

Morning Program

Samuel M. Ciccati Performing Arts Center, Cuyamaca College

Join us for a morning reflection and dialogue on Nourishment, this year's theme for the Annual Gathering. As the world around us falls apart and we fight for our survival, what does it truly mean to nourish ourselves and one another? Speakers will share stories of life, love, and healing. They will weave threads that link food, connection, and community to nourishment and collective liberation.

Poetry

  • Diamond Brandon is a poet, movement builder, and cultural worker whose work lives at the intersection of storytelling, justice, faith, and healing. Writing since the fifth grade, she has long understood poetry as both refuge and resistance. A way to witness, process, tell the truth, and give language to the things we are often asked to carry quietly.

    Learn more at DiamondBrandon.com

  • Rooted in her lived experience as a Black woman, wife, mother, organizer, and community advocate, Diamond’s work explores grief and joy, struggle and possibility, love and collective survival. Beyond the stage, she serves as Director of Community Partnerships at the California Labor Federation and Chief Consultant for her family’s Black-owned S&S Friendly Ranch in San Diego.

    Whether writing, organizing, or holding space, Diamond believes our stories can help us remember who we are, reclaim our power, and imagine what is possible.

Opening Speaker

  • Dr. Ashanté Reese is associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Reese works at the intersection of critical food studies and Black geographies, examining the ways Black people produce and navigate food-related spaces despite anti-Blackness. Animated by the question, “who and what survives?”, much of Dr. Reese’s work has focused on the everyday strategies Black people employ while navigating inequity.

    Learn more at amreese.com

  • Her first book, Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C., takes up these themes through an ethnographic exploration of anti-Blackness and food access. Her second book, Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice, is a collection co-edited with Hanna Garth that explores the geographic, social, and cultural dimensions of food in Black life across the U.S.

    Currently, Dr. Reese is working on a project tentatively titled, The Carceral Life of Sugar in which she explores the spatial, economic, and metaphorical resonance of the plantation in the early 20th century convict lease system in Texas and the ongoing carceral significance of sugar in everyday (Black) life.

Dialogue Facilitator

  • Shantel Suárez Ávila, daughter of Mexican immigrants and a Chicago native turned Escondido resident, is the Founder and Principal Resource Strategist of Más Allá, a values-driven and community-centered fundraising practice advancing resource justice and equity. Through her work, Shantel partners with women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and grassroots communities to reimagine how resources are raised, shared, and moved into community.

    Learn more at masallaconsulting.com

  • A community organizer, Shantel is a co-founder and organizer with the San Diego Solidarity Network, former co-steward of the Community-Centric Fundraising San Diego Chapter, and currently serves on the Nominations Committee of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties and as a Council Member of the Community-Centric Fundraising North American Council.

    Grounded in her heritage and guided by a belief in collective well-being, Shantel is passionate about changing how we understand resources—not simply as dollars to be raised, but as tools for building power, sustaining community, and creating more just and abundant futures.

Dialogue Voices

  • Janice Luna Reynoso is the Founder and Executive Director of Mundo Gardens. She grew up in National City, Southeast San Diego, and Baja California. She draws from her family’s Mexican and farmworker heritage, her connection to the land, culture, and indigenous history of the region. As part of her vision for a healthy, thriving community, Janice leads the Reconnecting Southeast San Diego & National City movement, a community-driven effort to transform decades of freeway infrastructure into green spaces, affordable housing, and climate resilience.

    Learn more at reconnectsesdnc.com and @mundogardens

  • “We are the future ancestors. I have deep reverence and great appreciation for the sacrifices my family has made and the awesome responsibility and joy I inherited. I will grow my work to leave things in a good way for the next generations.”

  • REE (she/her) is a second-generation Filipina community organizer, social worker, and doctoral candidate whose work lives at the intersection of mental health, culture, community care, and social justice. For more than two decades, she has dedicated her clinical and community work to advancing the rights and well-being of marginalized communities, centering culturally responsive healing, suicide prevention, collective care, and community power. Her practice is grounded in Liberation Health and draws upon storytelling, cultural wisdom, and lived experience as pathways toward individual and collective healing.

  • REE believes radical love and community care are not separate from movements for justice—they are essential to sustaining them. She is the founder of emrg collaborative therapy and support services, inc., a culturally responsive mental health practice rooted in liberation, connection, and community. REE is also a Doctoral Candidate in the Doctorate of Social Work program at Simmons University. Above all, REE loves being a mom, and she finds nourishment and joy in family and community, lowriding and classic cars, and training jiu-jitsu.

  • Shannon Magee (Luiseno/Cahuilla) is an enrolled Tribal member of the Pala Band of Mission Indians. She enjoys working on projects that support Indigenous youth, family and maternal health,Traditional Ecological Knowledge, cultural preservation, and agricultural endeavors within Tribal communities.

  • Shannon’s background includes collaborating with diverse partners on initiatives that are guided by Traditional Ecological Knowledge, organizing community workshops, and supporting grant-funded projects to advance Indigenous land stewardship. Her dedication to community health is further demonstrated through her work as a Birth Doula and Indigenous Birth Justice Advocate on the Yakama Nation, where she supported maternal and infant health initiatives.

    As a certified Herbalist and native plant lover, Shannon’s work is deeply rooted in preserving traditional cultural practices, promoting Tribal self-reliance, and strengthening resilient communities.

    Shannon currently lives with her three children on the Pala Reservation in San Diego County.