Rev. Peggy Clarke has a BA in Liberation Theology, an MA in Historical Theology (Medieval), and another 26 credits in American Religious History. She was a Crisis Work Supervisor working with homeless and runaway kids in NYC and became a Campus Minister and Adjunct Professor for a decade.

In 2008, she co-founded a food justice organization that’s still thriving. Its mission is to create equal access to food that’s good, clean, and fair. They do that through local growing and critical partnerships. In 2010, Peggy was ordained and worked as a DRE and solo minister, and now as Senior Minister at UU churches in the NY area.

As a UU, Peggy was on the team that ultimately wrote Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice Statement of Conscience and went on to chair the UU Food Justice Committee. She was also part of the Environmental Justice Collaboratory and was a convener for the experimental Commit2Respond program. In 2014, Peggy was the prime organizer for UU involvement in the massive Climate March held in NYC and was an Observer Delegate at the Paris Climate Summit. In addition, She was a witness at Standing Rock, marched to free refugees at the Mexican border, and organized national UU involvement in the Climate Strike in 2019.

Peggy is currently a member of the founding board for the new NY State Advocacy Network. She is organizing a witness event at Pipeline 3 at the request of a coalition of Indigenous folx. Peggy lives in NY with her husband, son, and 2 dogs.

Johannes Favi is a community and human rights activist and writer who received the 2021 Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Award from the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, Illinois.

After spending over 10 months detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in horrible conditions, Johannes, an immigrant from Benin, started advocating for and providing support to other victims. He raised money to support families affected by detention and deportation in his community, educated students in schools and universities on the impact of detention, and wrote several articles championing the abolition of for-profit detention centers.

Johannes has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and worked at Etisalat Benin before immigrating to the United States in 2013. In 2019 He was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and spent nearly a year in jail at Jerome Combs Detention Center in Kankakee, Illinois. With no bond and denied access to fresh air and direct exposure to sunlight, he vowed then that he would dedicate his life to ensuring equal treatment for all immigrants.

While detained, Johannes missed the birth of his son and his daughter’s first steps and couldn’t afford to send them holiday gifts. In his first year out of detention, he organized a Christmas toy drive in collaboration with The Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants, Connect Kankakee, and the National Immigrants Justice Center.

Johannes firmly believes that detention is not the solution for a civil matter like immigration, especially during a global pandemic, stating, “It is wrong to put people in handcuffs and leg cuffs as if they were in a maximum-security prison. During and post detention, many families struggle to pay their rent, bills, or even put food on the table daily. It is not normal that in this country a parent would have to go hungry so their children can eat. When facing unstable housing situations and being worried about how you are going to pay the next month’s rent, many make bad decisions in their life just so they could fill in the lost income caused by detention.”

Johannes has continued to participate in civil rights and social issues, particularly through the Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants. In this Chicago nonprofit organization, he is currently serving on the Board of Directors. He is also part of Connect Kankakee, a local group of fierce advocates where he also serves as a board member. He is an ambassador for the newly created Midwest Immigration Bond Fund.

Vonna Heaton is a passionate and lifelong student and practitioner of Unitarian Universalist principles. She became a Unitarian Universalist and joined River Road UU Congregation in 2013 and proceeded to put her energy and passion to use by serving with several groups, including the Racial Justice Task Force, Action in Montgomery core team, Welcome Team, and Social Justice Review and Ministry Teams. She has also been nurtured by many small group fellowships, including Beloved Conversations, Spirit Journey, Inquirers, and Women’s Groups. Vonna implemented the inaugural Actions for Justice Racial Justice Pathway, which works to enhance and positively impact national voter outreach.

Vonna recently served on the RRUUC Board of Trustees, including a term as co-chair. She was a member of the newly formed Social Justice Ministry Team, which “reimagined” social justice engagement at the congregation. She is currently participating on the Board visioning and strategic planning team, which seeks to lay a vision and implementation strategy for the Board and congregation in the next five years. Vonna also serves on the Board of a non-profit that is reshaping the local food system by reducing barriers to accessing nutrient-dense fresh produce for those experiencing food insecurity in our communities, promoting improved health outcomes through Food Is Medicine programs for low-income residents at risk of chronic diet-related diseases, and supporting local small-scale produce farmers through fair-price purchase programs.

Before joining the ranks of the joyfully retired persons, Vonna’s first career was as a math teacher and then 34 years as a federal employee. She earned many distinctions, including the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal and the Presidential Meritorious Rank Award. She is most proud of her Agency-level employee nominated Mentor of the Year and Supervisor of the Year Awards. Vonna and her husband Ed live just west of Rockville, MD. Her life has been graced by the love of family, including her identical twin sister Valri, and is the proud aunt to nieces and nephews in whose lives she engages on a regular and symbiotically supportive basis. She and Ed are also parents to Ed’s daughter Sarah and son Tony and Tony’s daughter, Autumn Moon. She enjoys hiking and exploring new plant-based recipes.

Meleah Houseknecht (she/her/hers) is the founder and owner of Emergence Consulting, which provides added capacity to nonprofit clients through organizational development, project strategy and management, meeting and event design, facilitation, and coaching on inclusive stakeholder engagement to advance more just, and resilient environmental policy, planning, and decision-making. Most recently, she served as the director of policy and systems change for Environmental Initiative, where for nine years, she lead the organization’s work to engage diverse stakeholder perspectives on behalf of state and local government and to build capacity in the environmental field to collaboratively address systemic and complex environmental problems through the lens of racial, cultural, and social equity.

Meleah holds a master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of the Environmental and has nearly 20 years of experience engaging stakeholders in environmental policy development and implementation. In 2021 she also began the journey of following her call to Unitarian Universalist ministry and is currently a student at United Theological Seminary in Unitarian Universalist studies and social transformation. She originally hails from West Virginia but has happily settled in South Minneapolis. She enjoys walking and biking to local restaurants, coffee shops, and extraordinary parks, sometimes with her spouse and two young children and sometimes blissfully alone. When not consulting, reading radical theology, or parenting, Meleah looks for ways to support neighbors and members of her congregation in expressing their values through social justice action as co-chair of the Faithful Action Council at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis.

Charlotte Jones-Carroll retired in 2000, after a career at the US Agency for International  Development (10 years) and the World Bank (21 years) doing strategy, program, and budget work, including eight years as a manager. She subsequently did consulting work for the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

For the past four years, Charlotte Jones-Carroll has been the Convenor of UUSJ’s Immigration Action Team and related advocacy for UUSJ. At the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation in suburban Maryland, she has worked on the Latin American task force and organized and, for four years, co-chaired the Immigration and Refugee Justice Committee. At RRUUC, Beloved Community, welcoming congregation, she also served on and chaired the Social Justice Council. She has done witnessing for immigration rights, women’s reproductive rights, civil rights, peace, and other issues.

Charlotte has served on the UUSJ Board as Secretary for the last two years during its strategic planning period, serving on the Governance Committee and Finance Committee and heading the Immigration Action Team. She has served on many other non-profit boards, including UUSC (five years), River Road UUC (four years including the chair), La Clinica del Pueblo (Sec, Treas, Chair — including during a major transition to a community-led board), Margaret McNamara Education Grants (formerly MMMF — served as Chair for two years), Centro Familia (no longer exists – but was Secretary/Treasurer), World Bank Children’s center (Secretary) and Cantigas (Latin American choral group — Secretary). She also has served on numerous nominating committees, including at UUSC and RRUUC.

Charlotte has a BA in International Service from American University and an MPA in Economic Development from Princeton University. Charlotte is married with one adult child and an extensive blended family. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Norma Flores López is the Chief Programs Officer at Justice for Migrant Women. Norma grew up as a child of a migrant farmworker family from South Texas. She began working in the fields at the age of 12, where she continued working until she graduated from high school. She has long been an active advocate for migrant farmworker children’s rights and continues to raise awareness on issues affecting the farmworker community.

Norma has had the opportunity to testify before Congress and has appeared on national news outlets, including “60 Minutes”, on issues related to child labor in agriculture. Foreign governments have also invited her to consult on strategies to reduce child labor abroad. Norma serves as the chair of the Child Labor Coalition’s Domestic Issues Committee and was just awarded the U.S. Department of Labor prestigious 2021 Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor. In 2017, she was selected to serve as the representative for the United States on the Board of Directors for the Global March Against Child Labour. In addition, Norma has served on the Board of Directors for the National Consumers League since 2016.

Before joining Justice for Migrant Women, Norma was the Governance and Development/ Collaboration Manager at the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project and a co-founder of The Foundation for Farmworkers. She also served as the Director of the Children in the Fields Campaign at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and managed national and local clients at public relations firms.

Norma is a graduate of the University of Texas Pan-American and the George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. Norma lives in Virginia (DC area).

Dr. Serena Lowe has served on the UUSJ Board since March of 2019. She is currently Chair of the Policy Advocacy Review Committee and has been engaged in several UUSJ’s advocacy, education, and witnessing activities. Serena has been a part of several social justice ministries at All Souls UU in Washington, DC, and previously led the congregation’s Migrant Solidarity Work. She was a member of the Coordinating/Advisory Council for the Congregation Action Network.

Serena has spent the past 25 years furthering public policies that promote the socio-economic advancement of low-income working families, individuals with disabilities, seniors, children, women, immigrants, and refugees. She is the Founder & Principal of AnereS Strategies LLC, a high-impact public policy and organizational management consulting firm focused on providing innovative solutions and extraordinary results for federal and state government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, and professional associations.

Previously Serena served in a variety of leadership roles in the field of government relations, including as the Reimbursement Director of a Fortune 100 global biopharmaceutical company; the youngest Vice President of a top 20 national lobbying firm; a research/policy fellow within two foreign governments (British House of Commons; Israeli Ministry of Health); the Executive Director of two national nonprofit organizations; a senior legislative aide to two Members of Congress, and a senior policy adviser at two agencies within the U.S. federal executive branch.

Serena completed a B.A. in International & Public Affairs at Westminster College; a one-year overseas academic program as a Cranshaw Scholar at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics; two graduate degrees (M.P.H. in International Health Policy and M.A. in International Development Policy) from George Washington University; and a Ph.D. in Public Administration from American University. Serena has also taught part-time on the faculty of Rutgers University’s School of Public Affairs and Administration.

Chloe Emily Ockey serves as Communications and Media Coordinator for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno, California. Her passion is bringing awareness to social justice issues through creative means such as videos, photography, music, and graphic design. Chloe Emily has also participated in multiple national UU programs and training from the UU College of Social Justice, the UUA, and more.

Chloe Emily helped lead her home congregation in the shift from in-person to virtual ministry and has spent this year with the UUA General Assembly and Conference Services Office as their Community Engagement Intern. She has event management and planning experience with the Center for Advanced Research and Technology, as well as Central California Adoption Services and the UUA Office in the United Nations. Chloe Emily earned her Associate in Communications Studies in the Spring of 2018 and has since been immersed in the work of adoption advocacy, climate justice, and Young Adult program development.

Rev. Kristin Schmidt grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Cedar Lane UU Church. SheI earned her Bachelor of Arts in music from McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, in 2004, after which she spent 6 months working in England, where she heard the call to ministry. She served Cedar Lane as Membership Coordinator while earning a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary, graduating in 2010. Kristin met her husband while doing an internship at the Bay Area UU Church in Houston, Texas. Since marrying, she has served congregations in Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, and now the UU Church of Silver Spring back in Maryland. She lives with her husband, four boys, dog, and cat in Olney, Maryland. In addition to ministry, She enjoys baking, singing, reading, hiking, and all things Star Trek.

Mariano J. Vera is a member of the Manatee Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bradenton, Florida, where he chairs the Social Justice Committee. Mariano is a journalist and speaks Argentinian Sign Language (first language), Spanish, and English.

He is currently producing a Latino radio show with specific themes (women singers and songwriters, gay, international day of peace, etc.) broadcast locally on WSLR 96.5 Sarasota and syndicated to 21 radio stations through the Pacifica Network.

Mariano has belonged to Argentine social justice communities and worked with disadvantaged people in the US. He still works with progressive causes in his community. He grew up with Jesuit priests who addressed the Theory of Liberation and emphasized social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed people.

Mariano has worked at Jefferson Center Apartments in Sarasota, Florida, UU housing for low-income elderly people, and as an educator for AIDS research in Washington D.C. in the 1990s. He has also worked at Gallaudet University in the International Center on Deafness. Mariano worked with the AIDS afflicted during the Pandemic of the late ’80s and ’90s in Washington D.C. and with the LGBTQ community in the ’90s and 2000s. He actively worked with issues like homelessness, hunger, and Women’s rights. Mariano is now volunteering as a notary public, a Spanish to English translator, and an immigration forms specialist.

Mariano considers himself an incredibly lucky man. He says: “My parents were empathetic and at the same time, due to their disability (they were both born deaf), they required others to be caring towards them as well.” Mariano also says: “I was fortunate when I met Tom, my current spouse. Tom is a bonanza of social justice battles and commitments, as well as a spirited fighter for social and racial equality.” Mariano says: “The key to success in the volunteer universe is in the search for the opportunities during whatever social situation develops.”

Leon D. Winston retired in 2020 as the Chief Operating Officer and Housing Director of Swords to Plowshares in San Francisco, CA. He worked on the housing, treatment, and income support needs of homeless and at-risk veterans for 25 years. Referred there by the SF VA Medical Center, he came to Swords as a homeless client in 1993. He graduated from its transitional housing program before working for the organization in 1995. During his tenure, the agency grew in size from two dozen employees and a budget of about $2MM in 1995 to over well over 200 employees and a budget of over $30MM by the time he retired.

While with Swords to Plowshares, Leon became agency lead in creating multiple permanent supportive and deeply affordable housing projects, including specialized projects for homeless and disabled senior veterans and the chronically homeless, totaling nearly 600 units. He has been appointed to or otherwise served on multiple policy and advisory boards or committees: as co-chair of San Francisco’s Continuum of Care board; upon multiple local and state policy academies dealing with homelessness; the SF Alcoholism and Drug Abuse advisory boards, and national bodies such as the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans and the VA Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans. He possesses Master of Nonprofit Administration / Organizational Development and Bachelor of Public Administration degrees from the University of San Francisco and certification in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Leon and his husband, Michael Morford, MD, moved to Santa Fe, NM, following their retirement in mid-2020, where they are in the last phases of building their home and are active members of the local UU congregation.