Keynote Address
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Kate MacKenzie, MS, RD Executive Director, NYC Mayor’s Office of Food Policy MacKenzie advises the Mayor of the City of New York on all issues related to food policy, including the City’s commitment to decrease the carbon footprint of its food purchases 33% by 2030. Under MacKenzie’s leadership, Food Forward NYC, the city’s first-ever comprehensive food policy plan, which lays out a framework to reach a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food system by 2030, was released. She leads the City’s Good Food Purchasing commitments, focused on increasing access to healthy, sustainable foods for the over 230 million meals and snacks served daily by City agencies, from public schools to senior centers. She led the City’s interagency COVID-19 food response to ensure that no New Yorker experienced hunger due to the pandemic. She also oversaw the development of Groceries to Go, which provides New Yorkers with an online electronic voucher to buy healthy foods from local businesses. Kate is a recognized leader with over two decades of experience building food security and broader anti-poverty solutions in New York City and nationally. Kate holds a master’s degree in public health nutrition from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences from Cornell University. She is also a registered dietician. |
Panel Discussion: Faith-Based Perspectives on Food Justice
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Kiana Davis, the Social Action and Social Justice Manager at B’nai Jeshurun, is passionate about bringing Jewish values to life through direct service, community organizing, and social justice initiatives. Having worked as the Policy Analyst at the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center and as a Public Benefits Advocate at the Bronx Defenders, Kiana has spent years advocating for policy changes and supporting those in need, with a particular focus on housing and food access. Kiana also previously worked for GrowNYC as a Food Access Market Manager at the Grand Army Plaza farmers market. Kiana holds a Master’s degree in Urban Policy and Leadership from Hunter College.
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Dr. Lyla June Johnston (aka Lyla June) is an Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. Her doctoral research focused on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-humans.
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Yamina Kezadri, a public health enthusiast and thriving mother of two, is a transplanted Brooklynite from Algeria at the ripe age of 8 years old. As of recently, the de facto Executive Director of Muslims Giving Back (MGB), a non profit community based organization that addresses social determinants of health through meeting the food insecurity needs within the community at large. As part of her work, she collaborates with organizations and advocates that are committed to combating inequitable access to the communities of need. Her passions include emergency response such as access to food services through MGB’s Need2Feed program, leading hunger feed events, as well as partaking in the Muslims Women’s Leadership Council. She originally started volunteering with Muslims Giving Back in 2012 when it was first incepted as means of addressing the propaganda being perpetuated against the Muslim Community post 9/11 attacks. She has made it her passion to ensure that New Yorkers have access to food and a safe space for care while being an advocate for the Muslim community.
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Dr. Rucha Kaur is a social justice and public health advocate with over 14 years of experience in Sikh community centered grassroots organizing and leadership building. She currently serves as the Community Development Director at the Sikh Coalition, the nation’s largest Sikh civil rights organization, where she leads the community engagement strategies designed to enhance grassroots leadership, defend civil rights and build community power. She also serves as the Founding Board Member for Interfaith Public Health Network, which engages faith communities to prioritize working on public health initiatives. Her expertise focuses on ensuring that marginalized communities have access to linguistically and culturally competent evidence-based strategies to move the needle on social justice and/or public health outcomes. Rucha holds a Doctoral Degree in Communication Studies from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and a Masters Degree in Development Communication from Gujarat University in India. |
Workshop Facilitators
How to Offer Religiously Inclusive Meals |
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Dickran Jebejian, D.J., is the Manager of Food Policy for Met Council Food Programs and Policy and a food-loving advocate and researcher dedicated to social justice and fighting poverty. He is responsible for the research, analysis, and advocacy that goes into Met Council’s work with local, state, and federal agencies and elected officials. Through his work, Met Council has secured over $6 million in funding for their Food Programs and Policy while also helping push for legislation, budgets, and policy changes that have directly benefited emergency food organizations throughout New York City.
While pursuing his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, D.J. cemented his love for feeding people as a line cook. Through this work, he learned about service, food systems, and procurement in the largest agricultural market in the United States. From there, D.J. pursued a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles. There, he studied qualitative and quantitative policy analysis while receiving mentorship from the founder of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council.
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Carla Kay is the Halal and Community Food Coordinator at Met Council. Met Council has been serving kosher foods to Jewish communities in need for more than 20 years, and in 2020 launched its Halal Food Program with a commitment to serve emergency halal foods to Muslim populations as well. Carla has been researching religious and cultural food systems for more than 5 years, and with this experience is spearheading the development of Met Council’s Halal Food Program. Today, the Program works with more than 20 halal food pantries across New York City. Along with working to expand Met Council’s halal pantry network, Carla uses on-the-ground research to inform Met Council’s policy efforts towards advocating for a more religiously and culturally inclusive emergency food system.
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Aminta Kilawan-Narine is a lawyer, community organizer, and writer. She is a co-founder of Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, an organization founded in 2010 and dedicated to merging the values at the heart of Hinduism with those at the heart of social justice. In this role, Aminta has fostered ecological stewardship through beach cleanups, promoted immigrant rights through know your rights workshops, and fostered gender equity through a feminist faith lens. Aminta is also the founder and director of South Queens Women’s March, a gender justice movement-building organization with a mission to meet women, girls, and gender-fluid people where they are and connect them to the tools necessary to thrive. Aminta is a columnist for her local newspaper, The West Indian, as well as Brown Girl Magazine. Professionally, she is Senior Legislative Counsel at the New York City Council with a portfolio including homelessness, public benefits, and child welfare.
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Supporting Sustainable Food Systems |
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Alec Chi was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and moved to Flatbush to study nutrition at Brooklyn College. He joined ENYF through the CUNY Food Justice Leadership Fellowship. Prior to that, he was cooking in restaurants and apprenticing at organic farms. Alec’s love for food has brought him from the foodservice industry to farms to ENYF where he is currently assisting with community organizing and strengthening their autonomy by growing food through restorative and regenerative agriculture.
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Iyeshima (eye-she-mah) Harris-Ouedraogo, originally from Jamaica, joined the food justice movement over a decade ago, finding community in farming. She taught food justice, advocated for universal school lunches, designed, implemented and led youth programs. As Green Guerillas‘ Director of Programs, she implements programs, engages in government relations, and hosts civic engagement. She spent six years with East New York Farms! as a Project Director, and led the Youth Food Justice Network, organizing youth-led events. In 2019, she co-founded the Youth Empowerment Pipeline at Green Guerillas. Iyeshima also serves on boards and councils, including BK ROT and the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming. She was recognized in 2022 as one of North American Association for Environmental Education’s EE 30 Under 30. With a background in Political Science & Sociology and ongoing Public Administration studies, she aims to highlight the importance of food in everyday life through her work.
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Towards Food Sovereignty: A Racial Justice Perspective |
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Kelly Moltzen is a co-founder and convener of the Interfaith Public Health Network, which helps organizations and faith communities to create impactful relationships to advance public health. As a Secular Franciscan with 13+ years experience in public health nutrition and food justice, Kelly is a tireless advocate of making connections between food, health, faith, and social justice. She is a Registered Dietitian, has her Master’s of Public Health, and was a 2022 Rockefeller-Acumen Food Systems Fellow. Her Food System Vision Prize proposal, Faith Communities Leading the Way Towards Healthy, Sustainable Food Systems, reached the semi-finalist stage. She is a steering committee member of the Center for Earth Ethics’ Faith and Food Coalition, and was named to Hunter College’s NYC Food Policy Center 40 Under 40 Class of 2020. Kelly is also a Program Manager at Bronx Health REACH and a consultant with the Chief Impact and Sustainability Office of Church World Service.
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Tanika I. Williams specializes in multi-sensory education and engaging demonstrations using food, mindfulness and visual art. As an activist and educator, she brings culinary arts and food justice to life through innovative workshops, cooking classes and writings. She is also an award-winning filmmaker and performance artist whose work centers the quiet nature of care and seeks to understand the role of service in deepening the experience of humanity. Williams holds a BA from Eugene Lang College, New School and MDiv from Union Theological Seminary. Her films have been screened at festivals and broadcast on American television. Williams has been awarded residencies at New York Foundation for the Arts, Hi-ARTS, and BRIC. Additionally, she has been featured on 99.5 WBAI; and in Art in Odd Places; Creative Time; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Civic Art Lab, GreenspaceNYC; Let Us Eat Local, Just Food; and Performa.
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Ora Wise is a queer chef, community weaver, and cultural producer based in Brooklyn. She builds critical bridges between the food world and grassroots organizing for liberation, strengthening regenerative food systems, boosting capacity, investing in local economies, and practicing collective care. She is co-founder of FIG, a grassroots collective of people working in food systems to develop collaborative strategies that address the interlocking issues of environmental sustainability, food sovereignty, racial equity and economic justice.
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Food Insecurity and Migration |
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Adama Bah an immigrant rights advocate, came to the U.S. in 1990, at the age of two. She lived in the States and attended public schools. Then, at sixteen, her whole world changed. The FBI raided her apartment and handcuffed her, along with her father. She was detained and told she was “illegal.” Her father was deported. Adama was allowed to stay but forced to drop out of school and support her family. Now Adama tells her story to call attention to the plight of others like her. | |
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Brennan Brink is a 3rd year M.Div. student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Upon matriculating with his M.Div., Brennan intends to continue his work in the non-profit sector to help organizations put community values into action. At ICNY, Brennan helps to strengthen and unify the work of Houses of Worship as they respond to the Asylum Seeker Crisis in New York City. Brennan’s passion for community activism grew in his home state of South Dakota, where he worked on local campaigns to support public education and served as an education intern for a state legislator from the Pine Ridge Reservation. Brennan received a degree in Religion with Distinction from St. Olaf College.
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Jaclinn Tanney is an experienced executive devoted to disrupting and growing market share. Jaclinn has a strong record of positive results, growing EBITDA, reducing costs and repositioning global brands. She has been called upon to share her organizational strategy with varied nonprofits and businesses throughout the United States and abroad. Upon seeing the devastating effects of COVID-19 and the profound hunger crises facing New York City, Jaclinn turned her attention to address food insecurity and the millions of people living without access to food by co-founding Jabber Dorado Enterprises and overseeing The Migrant Kitchen Initiative.
Jaclinn has received multiple awards for her ability to design and implement effective programs while maintaining a high level of quality, transparency and measurement. She was most recently recognized as a Women Culinarian by Spruce Eats and a Crain’s New York Business 40 Under 40 Honoree. Jaclinn’s affiliations include Board Member of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) and Lucas’s Fitness Lab. She is a member of the Social Gastronomy Movement and an Adjunct Professor at CUNY Baruch College.
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Workers’ Rights in the Food Industry |
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Cancelled. We look forward to exploring workers’ rights in our programming next spring. In the meantime, please look at our resource guide for more information about the advocacy around labor in the food industry. | |
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Advocacy Panel
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Robert (Bob) Pezzolesi, MPH, is a public health advocate dedicated to building healthier communities by integrating faith-inspired social change with science-based public health policy and practice. An internationally recognized expert on alcohol-related harm and alcohol policy, Bob has presented across the U.S. and around the globe, in settings as varied as small meetings in church basements to the Global Alcohol Policy Conference (Seoul, 2013 and Melbourne, 2017), the World Social Forum (Montreal, 2016), the World Cancer Congress (Paris, 2016), and the United Nations. Following his work as Alcohol Consultant to New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, he coordinated the Building Alcohol Ad-Free Transit (BAAFT) campaign, a successful grassroots effort to remove alcohol advertising from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority system. His consultation and volunteer work have addressed a range of public health issues, including substance use problems and recovery, gendered violence, food systems, and the public health impacts of systemic racism. He earned his Master of Public Health with a concentration in community health from Walden University in 2009. A member of the United Methodist Church (UMC) since 1991, Bob is a Full Candidate for the Office of UMC Home Missioner.
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José D. Soto Rivera is the Northeast Regional Organizer at Bread for the World. He empowers faith-based leaders and community representatives in the northeast to advocate for international and domestic food policy and oversees community engagement and development activities for Bread for the World’s member organizations in the region. He was the executive director of ACOMERPR where he created a food distribution network consisting of 130 community organizations distributing 168,000 meals annually, constructed five multigenerational community gardens with nutritional programming in impoverished regions of Puerto Rico, and propelled the creation of the first dedicated food security think tank on the archipelago. Mr. Soto has consulted for Accenture Federal Services, the Puerto Rico Information & Technology Services, the Puerto Rican Government (2017-2019), and the Jordanian Minister of Entrepreneurship (2019). He has developed public policy and overseen the implementation of multi-million-dollar projects for economic development, public health, and sustainability throughout his career and is deeply devoted to the development of Puerto Rico’s communities.
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In-person Community Conversation
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Since December 2021, Isaac Adlerstein has served as the Executive Director of Broadway Community, a 42-year-old human service agency that serves New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, hunger, and poverty through a broad range of programs including a shelter, soup kitchen, food pantry, on-site medical services, life skills program, and more.
Raised in Queens and Long Island, Isaac has formally been involved in homeless services since 2017, when he began his work at the Interfaith Nutrition Network (The INN), Long Island’s largest homeless services agency. At The INN, Isaac served at the agency’s flagship soup kitchen and assisted Guests with securing employment, housing, and other resources. He ultimately joined The INN’s staff and led projects to develop more effective case management and reporting tools. Immediately prior to joining Broadway Community, Isaac served as the Director of Volunteer Services at Commonpoint Queens, Queens’ largest social service agency. There, Isaac oversaw all agency volunteer operations and mobilized 1,500 volunteers to provide critical support to the agency’s food pantries, workforce development initiatives, senior centers, and after school programs. |
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Jana Dye has served as the Interim Associate Pastor at Metro Baptist and Associate Director of RMM since January 2023 and has been a part of the Metro community since she served as a summer intern in 2018. She is originally from Louisville, KY. She has a Bachelors degree from Georgetown College in Kentucky and has a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest Divinity School in North Carolina. She loves living in NYC and serving the amazing community Metro/RMM. |
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Sultana Ocasio is the director of Food Bank For NYC’s Community Kitchen and Pantry in West Harlem. Her work centers on access to basic needs through a community and faith-based approach. The Community Kitchen serves over 100,000 meals a month including referrals for SNAP and free tax assistance. Ms. Ocasio’s past work includes hosting the first National Faith HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in the state of New York and creating a Muslim-focused HIV resource guide and toolkit. Ms. Ocasio has worked closely with the Latino Commission on AIDS and National Black Leadership Commission on Health to address education and destigmatization of HIV both on the community level and among Muslims in New York City.
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Mireya Vasquez has been volunteer with RMM for just over a year. She has been passionate about food justice since college and works at multiple food pantries and soup kitchens across the city, sometimes on the same day! She is originally from the Dominican Republic and speaks Spanish and French. |
Multi-Faith Prayer Leaders
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Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist Global Relief | |
| Imam Ammar Abdul Rahman |
Conference Hosts
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Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer directs The Interfaith Center of New York, a nationally-recognized nonprofit that works with hundreds of grassroots religious leaders from diverse faith traditions to catalyze partnerships with civic officials to resolve social problems plaguing New York City. Issues include police reform, immigration concerns, and domestic violence. Institutional partners have included the New York Unified Court System, Catholic Charities, UJA Federation, & the National Endowment for the Humanities. Programs include the Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy (2017–), the Social Work and Religious Diversity program (2007–), and the Rabbi Marshall Meyer Social Justice Retreats (1998–). In addition to program work, ICNY advocates for religious freedom and civil rights. An Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York, Breyer also serves as Associate Priest at St. Philip’s Church in Harlem. Breyer is the author of The Close: A Young Woman’s First Year at Seminary (Basic Books 2000), chapter contribution in other books, and her Ph. D. is in Christian Ethics from Union Theological Seminary where she wrote her doctoral thesis about Islamophobia and interfaith work.
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Shanaz Deen, Racial Justice Advocacy Fellow, holds a BA from Princeton University and an MA from Union Theological Seminary in Islam and Interreligious Engagement. She has over five years of experience in humanitarian work, interfaith organizing, and migration policy, working for Princeton’s Religion and Forced Migration Initiative, the International Rescue Committee, and UN Women. As a freelance photographer, Shanaz documents social movements, protests, and nuanced expressions of lived religion through documentary and portrait photography. She is eager to use her skills in research and visual storytelling to advocate for a more equitable and compassionate society.
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Hanadi Doleh, Director of Community Partnerships at the Interfaith Center of New York. She has spent her adult life working in and for New York’s Muslim community. She earned a BA in Political Science and MA in International Relations from Brooklyn College, CUNY. Her academic work has informed her understanding of the issues that shape Muslim life in the US and abroad, as well as her social justice activism on behalf of Muslim Americans and other underrepresented communities. Following the completion of her MA, Hanadi worked for seven years at the Park51 Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the NYC Faith Sector Community Preparedness Program with New York Disaster Interfaith Services and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 2019, Hanadi was a Community Advisory Board Member at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for their Contemporary Muslim Fashions Exhibit, which was displayed from February 2020 to July 2021. In June of 2019, she received an honor from New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer for her contributions to the civic life of New York. Also, in December of 2019, Hanadi was honored and recognized by the Muslim Democratic Club of New York for her commitment to empowering Muslim communities and people of color through her organizing and civic engagement. In the summer of 2020, she was elected as Vice President of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York.
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Dr. Henry Goldschmidt, Director of Programs at the Interfaith Center of New York. He is a cultural anthropologist, community educator, interfaith organizer, and scholar of American religious diversity. He joined the staff at ICNY in 2010, and has helped develop and facilitate a wide range of programs serving religious and civic leaders, social workers, K-12 students and teachers, and others. Prior to his work at ICNY, Henry received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and taught religious studies and cultural anthropology at Wesleyan University and elsewhere. Among other publications, he is the author of Race and Religion among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights (2006) and coeditor of Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas (2004). He is a life-long, fanatic New Yorker, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children.
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