Emilyn (Emi) Vallega

I currently live in Lexington Kentucky with my partner, Amy, our daughter Joleigh, our son Hagan, and our dog Ellie. I joined KFTC staff as a Communication Associate in 2007. I am primarily involved in materials and message production with a leg immersed in grassroots fundraising. I have MA in Critical Media Studies from the University of Kentucky. I’m active in local community organizing around equal access to transportation. I’m a founding member of the amazing Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop (thebrokespoke.org).

Tori Cress is an Anishinaabe mother of two, from Beausoleil First Nation on Christian Island, Ontario, Canada. Tori has been organizing Idle No More events around Ontario since the rise of the Idle No More movement in November 2012. Tori works part-time for Idle No More in an administrative role and spends much of the rest of her time volunteering for Idle No More and Defenders of the Land. She works with others on the Idle No More communications team and the development committee. Tori also drives a taxi cab in small town Midland to help fund grassroots work locally.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Sydney is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and refugees. She is the Communications Associate at Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). Prior to APEN, she served as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow at the United Way of King County in Seattle and at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement in Washington, D.C.. Sydney’s communications expertise comes from her time as a Communications Intern with Grassroots Change and her experience as a spokesperson on issues of campus diversity. Sydney graduated in 2012 from the UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Public Health and a Public Policy minor. She began her activist career as a student leader in multicultural campus coalitions, where she focused on recruitment and retention efforts for underrepresented Asian Pacific Islanders and served as a student senator. Sydney has also organized Chinese home care workers and served as a City of Berkeley Community Health Commissioner. She was a Public Policy International Affairs Fellow and a Bridges to Health Academy Associate at the Greenlining Institute. In her spare time, Sydney runs Lake Merritt, cooks Chinese food, and does neighborhood organizing against displacement.