Belén Lopez-Grady is a proud Xicana feminist, planner and strategist with 15 years in organizational stewardship. She is a first-generation college graduate raised by a single mother with six children in a segregated immigrant community. She became fully politicized at 15 after surviving sexual assault and an eviction. Belén holds a B.A. in Community Development and Environmental Science, an M.A. in Development with a focus on climate change and disaster risk reduction, and was trained in community organizing at Harvard University. Belén began at NBOP as a Housing Policy Analyst in 2018. She now organizes NBOP to be a vehicle for change; oversees operations, communications, organizing, fundraising, and UndocuFund; co-creates anti-racist public policy and advances culturally-affirmative mutual aid projects for staff, leaders, and the community.

For over 20 years, Xavier Danae Maatra has worked across the country as a community organizer, union organizer, nonprofit consultant, youth advocate, and farmer. Originally from Southern New Jersey, he spent 17 years building grassroots power in the Midwest. Throughout his career as a grassroots community educator, Xavier has created and facilitated curriculum for various people from around the world, including students from the UK, Iraq, and various countries across South America. He worked on countless grassroots campaigns for worker’s rights, poor, black, and brown people, and their allies. Highlights from his organizing work include building national grassroots leadership as an organizing coach with the Groundswell Fund and being documented in the books Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carathers and Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction by Shira Hassan. When they aren’t teaching or organizing, X is a growing farmer in Urban Agriculture. Where they have collaborated with multiple farmers to grow produce for mutual aid projects for marginalized groups in Chicago. They are motivated by love of his community, nature, and great art, especially music. Being a dad and getting the opportunity to mentor and train people as they develop the political agency needed to transform their material conditions nourish his revolutionary optimism.

Beatrice is a first-generation Chicana raised in Sonoma County to low-income, working-class parents who immigrated from Mexico. As a lifelong renter, growing up in Section 8 Housing, she knows the importance of dignified and affordable housing. Beatrice holds a B.S. in Business Management and is trained in Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices. An Organizer with NBOP since 2018, she organized the Sonoma County Tenants Union, dispersed over $5 million in Emergency Rental Assistance in 2021, and co-founded the statewide California UndocuFund Network in 2022. 

Gaby was born in El Salvador and in the late '80s her mother brought her to the U.S. as a baby. Her academic and career paths are informed by her upbringing in an immigrant household in northern California that benefited from supports of family resource centers like the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children's Center, the first low-cost child care center founded by a community member, not by an established school, church or other institution. Through her work as the Just Recovery Partnership manager, Gaby has been an advocate for language justice in formal disaster response and government spaces by highlighting the intersections of language, disasters and public participation.

Alondra is a first-generation Mexican-American born in Santa Rosa, CA. She and her five sisters were raised with the expectation they would be stay at home moms. However, Alondra had dreams of her own. She was determined to get an education with the hope of spreading awareness about women's rights. Alondra received her Associate's Degree in Administration, graduating with honors and is now the Administrative Assistant at NBOP. Alondra looks forward to learning more about being a community leader to be able to make an impact on women's rights!

Gina Garibo is a feminist committed to decolonization who is constantly learning. Born in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, Gina is the daughter of Angelina and Enrique and the youngest of three siblings. She has been involved in the migrant justice movement for more than 10 years, first as a researcher, then as an advocate, and now as an organizer and migrant woman herself. Between 2017 and 2018, she accompanied three migrant caravans from the south to the north of Mexico. She helped coordinate a campaign against municipal police abuse in Tijuana and the deadly pact between police and Mexico’s National Migration Institute, among other campaigns. She loves to co-create spaces for building collective power where people are able to assert themselves in their dignity and struggle. Now, she is placing her commitment, heart, and experiences in dialogue with and in service of the migrant struggle in Sonoma County.

Rocio is the fourth of 12 brothers and sisters and an immigrant from Michoacán México. She came to the U.S. in 1991 and started working for a Spanish Radio Station until the present. Rocio attended two different schools to take ESL classes and got her GED from Santa Rosa Junior College. She has been volunteering at The Resurrection Parish in many religious groups since coming to this country and volunteering for the Redwood Food Bank for more than 10 years and also worked as a Teacher Assistant for 20 years in the Roseland School District. Rocio has been involved with community organizations for many years and is now working with North Bay Organizing Project. She enjoys walking in nature, loves singing and dancing and her hobbies include playing the guitar, reading books, and going to the movie theater. She loves spending time with her family.

Raised by her single immigrant father and Mexican grandparents in mixed rural communities in the Green River Valley of Washington state, Lina witnessed the injustices they and other immigrant families faced navigating life in the United States. Lina first found her political awakening as a youth coach facilitating nonviolence leadership and poetry slam workshops with K-12 students across the West Coast from Seattle to Oakland with the Institute for Community Leadership. After obtaining her BA in Ethnic Studies at Mills College, Lina became an early co-founding staff member of Oakland-based Native American Health Center's Media Center, focusing on community-based graphic design and digital storytelling workshops in collaboration with intergenerational and intertribal stakeholders. Lina also co-founded a multiplatform pilot, KQED en Español, a Spanish language engagement and news initiative at the NPR/PBS affiliate station of the San Francisco Bay Area. Lina loves singing the songs her grandfather taught her from the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico. Lina now lives in Sonoma County, tending a milpa alongside her sweetheart, black cat, and senior Chihuahua.

Amber brings her experience as a data and climate change scientist to NBOP and uses her skills to support grantwriting, managing the day to day organizational finances, and providing tech support to staff. Her affinity for technology was passed down from her grandmother who was a database programmer in the 1950s for a fruit-packing company in southern Oregon. She is in her element when uplifting the voices of those who have been silenced by oppression, thrives in the rain, and finds inspiration in the power of people in numbers especially women in leadership roles.

Joy Ayodele is a first-generation Nigerian-American, born in Sonoma County. Having been raised by a single mother in the community of Roseland within Santa Rosa, primarily consisting of working-class immigrants and people of color, Joy encountered social and economic inequities at a young age – becoming hyper-aware of the disparities experienced by non-white individuals, and igniting a passion for activism centered on the progression of feminist, anti-racist, and abolitionist ideologies. In recent years, Joy has locally organized rallies and public demonstrations and appeared as a guest lecturer at Sonoma State University in hopes of informing community members about the systemic issues which perpetuate the harm of minority communities. In her role as an organizer with NBOP, Joy looks forward to developing powerful, local leaders and continuing to create safe spaces for politicized conversations, collective accountability, and radical love. 

Originally from Jalisco, Mexico, Manny came to the U.S. at the age of 10. He grew up in the Roseland Area of Santa Rosa and attended local schools, eventually pursuing his education at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC). While attending SRJC, Manny joined M.E.Ch.A. de SRJC and got involved in student activism engaging in topics that dealt with undocumented students' rights, immigration policies, and promoting higher education to marginalized young people. He received his Associate’s Degree in Social and Behavioral Science, a subject that he was interested in considering how it was intertwined with the understanding of community and the social, economic, political, and educational disparities present in marginalized communities and communities of color. In recent years, Manny has worked with young people in educational spaces implementing Restorative Justice practices and principles. Currently, As Youth Organizer with NBOP, Manny supports the development of young leaders and their organizing efforts on their respective campuses and communities and coordinates the Latinx Student Congress (LSC). He hopes to continue to grow this network of student-led organizations and young leaders in our community.

Diana, the fourth of six children, was born and raised in Sonoma County, where she attended SRJC before transferring to UC Berkeley to study Social Welfare. As a young adult, she dealt with housing insecurity and slumlords, and her close family members experienced homelessness. She believes housing is a human right and that everyone should be able to come home to a safe haven. Diana loves bringing people into organizing, building their power to transform the system from the ground up so that everyone's well-being and rights are protected. She enjoys spending time with loved ones, singing, dancing, drawing, writing, exploring, and relaxing with a good book, movie, TV show, or podcast.