Leader of the Month – November 2024
Jen Rhame - Fredericksburg Chapter Jen has been a dedicated leader and member of the Fredericksburg Chapter, sharing her voice to help build power. Most recently, Jen was a panelist for the Fredericksburg Chapter's Restoration of Rights Forum this mo...
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Leader of the Month – October 2024
Johnthan Burman - Martinsville Chapter Johnthan is a leader of our Martinsville Chapter who has been taking an active role in the work that the chapter is doing throughout the community. Not only has Johnthan been attending meetings regularly, but h...
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Leader of the Month – September 2024
We are bringing back our Leader of the Month, and what better way to do that than to highlight TWO of our chapter leaders who have risen to the occasion! This month, we are featuring our very own Brandy Faulkner and Aaron Easter for their work with V...
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“We Fight ‘Cause We’re Proud!”
As I sit and listen to each member of Virginia Organizing talking about what happened throughout the years, I know, I see, I hear Virginia Organizing cares. 25 years of grassroots work for justice in the VA, trying to put Virginia in a good place....
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Leader Tribute | LaChere Griffin-Denton
LaChere Griffin-Denton is a lifelong resident of Hampton. She got involved in Virginia Organizing because, “I wanted to be more active in government. I saw the way my local community was being treated, and I really didn’t like what I was seeing.” Che...
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Gerie Fatundimu | October 2020 Leader of the Month
When a Virginia Organizing intern first stopped in Gerie Fatundimu’s consignment business in uptown Martinsville, Gerie was happy to talk with her and fill out a survey. Five years later, Gerie has become an active leader in the Martinsville/Henry Co...
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Sendy Portillo | June 2020 Leader of the Month
Sendy Portillo moved to Richmond from El Salvador in 2008. She was looking for an organization to get involved in when Virginia Organizing started developing a chapter in the Richmond area in 2019. Before the pandemic started, she helped recruit memb...
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Dave Rogers | January/February 2020 Leader of the Month
Dave Rogers first came to Charlottesville when he was an undergraduate at UVA in 1965. After graduation, he moved to the Tidewater area to become a teacher, but he missed Charlottesville and soon moved back. He has lived here ever since, raising a fa...
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Kel BasAvraham | December 2019 Leader of the Month
Kel BasAvraham grew up in Mississippi, and has lived in many places, but came to Abingdon in their 30s. They’ve lived in various places in Appalachia but moved back to Abingdon about 10 years ago. Soon after that they joined the Washington Count...
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Brandy Faulkner | November 2019 Leader of the Month
Brandy Faulkner wanted to get involved with Virginia Organizing years before there was a chapter in the New River Valley, so she joined immediately when an organizer moved to her area. “I was really excited to see a grassroots organization with so mu...
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Tyran Green | September/October 2019 Leader of the Month
At the Grassroots Gathering this year, Tyran spoke about her experience over the summer as an intern for Virginia Organizing. She and the other interns held a living wage rally at a Charlottesville Chick-fil-A. The police were called because the road...
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Rebecca Sue Brown: July/August 2019 Leader of the Month
Rebecca moved to Harrisonburg in 2010 after living much of her life in Colorado. Due to progressing symptoms of then undiagnosed Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, she had to endure nine surgeries over the next four years. She was mostly homebound during those...
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Connie Wright-Zink: May 2019 Leader of the Month
Connie Wright-Zink of the Staunton/Augusta County/Waynesboro Chapter (SAW) grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. She and her husband moved first to Northern Virginia in 1995 and then out to a rural area in the Shenandoah Valley where the...
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Karen Downing: March/April 2019 Leader of the Month
Karen Downing is a native of the Eastern Shore and its public schools. She went to Norfolk State University and then returned home in 1990 and got involved in service to the community. When Virginia Organizing began to form a new chapter on the Shore...
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LaVerne Jackson – January/February 2019 Leader of the Month
Originally from Ohio, LaVerne Jackson moved to Virginia because of her husband’s military assignment here. She raised her children and worked as a nurse in pediatric health care, retiring after serving for many years as the Clinical Director o...
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Gayle Bracy – October/November 2018 Leader of the Month
Gayle Bracy grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and attended school in Ohio and Maryland. She graduated from the University of Maryland School of Business Administration. She joined the Air Force and completed her tour of service. She was hired by the D...
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Jerry Hill – August/September 2018 Leader of the Month
Jerry Hill grew up in Southwest Virginia, but he moved to Northern Virginia when he was young to become a teacher, administrator, and elementary school principal in Loudoun County. After 38 years of service in education, he retired and moved back hom...
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Terry White – April/May 2018 Leader of the Month
Terry White, “Bean” to his friends, first heard about Virginia Organizing when he saw a flyer in the grocery store. The flyer explained that people who had had their civil rights taken away could apply to the governor to have them restored. He contac...
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Lisa Taylor – February/March 2018 Leader of the Month
Lisa Taylor’s parents were from Lynchburg, but she grew up in New York while her father went to Cornell University. She came to live in Lynchburg more recently. Her son has grown up in Lynchburg and attended the Lynchburg City Schools. He’s in 9th gr...
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Eric Olson-Getty: September/October 2017 Leader of the Month
Eric Olson-Getty came to Virginia from North Carolina in 2014. He moved for a new church—his wife is a pastor of a Mennonite congregation—but got to Harrisonburg looking for a new grassroots organization too. After being a part of Durham CAN, an affi...
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Nagolia “Goldie” Wells: July/August Leader of the Month
Nagolia “Goldie” Wells was at the very first meeting of the Portsmouth Chapter of Virginia Organizing—and she hasn’t stopped since! “Meghan, our organizer, came to one of my civic league meetings back in 2016,” said Goldie. “A few of us decided to go...
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Tamara Cherry-Clarke: May 2017 Leader of the Month
In May 2016, Tamara Cherry-Clark attended a school-to-prison pipeline community meeting with a friend from work. In the year since that first meeting, Tamara has become a leader in the New River Valley Chapter and a driving force in their local educa...
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Jennifer and Angel Romero: April Leaders of the Month
Door-to-door canvassing. Agenda preparation. Planning meetings. On March 4, all of their hard work paid off. The immigrant rights workshop was a success! Jennifer and Angel Romero have only been involved in the Fredericksburg Chapter of Virginia Orga...
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Randi Carpoe: March 2017 Leader of the Month
Randi Carpoe first got involved with Virginia Organizing in August through a work study program for dislocated workers. Since then, Randi has been a faithful volunteer in the Charlottesville office — phone banking, writing thank-you notes to donors,...
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Jill Carson: January/February 2017 Leader of the Month
Jill Carson, a leader in the Lee County Chapter, was a founding member of Virginia Organizing Project’s original Organizing Committee back in 1995. Since then, Jill has stayed focused on helping real people make real change. “Meet people where they a...
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Martha Woody: December 2016 Leader of the Month
Since 2008, Martha Woody has been a strong member of Virginia Organizing. After participating in a series of meetings with legislators around predatory lending, health care, and more during the 2008 General Assembly session, Martha became active in e...
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Al Willis: November 2016 Leader of the Month
Al Willis first learned about Virginia Organizing through his church, and he's been a leader in the organizing drive on the Eastern Shore ever since. “I want to help people empower themselves and make their community better,” he said. Since getting i...
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Lee Irvin: October 2016 Leader of the Month
Lee Irvin first joined Virginia Organizing in mid-2015 after meeting Lynchburg area organizer Haley Wilson. Since then, Lee has worked hard to build power for change in Lynchburg and across Virginia. "Virginia Organizing provided a great opportunity...
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Trish Philon: September 2016 Leader of the Month
Trish Philon has been a member of the Harrisonburg Chapter for many years and is particularly interested in criminal justice issues in her community. Recently, her Chapter developed a community-police relations survey to learn more about perceptions...
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Lily Hungarland: August 2016 Leader of the Month
Lily Hungarland began her journey with Virginia Organizing in high school. She recently graduated and started at UVA this month. "I started learning about social justice issues and Virginia Organizing through church in middle school," said Lily. Her...
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Odessa Hudson: July 2016 Leader of the Month
Odessa Hudson is passionate about voting. For years, Odessa had her civil rights stripped away because she has a felony conviction on her record. She read about another returning citizen and Virginia Organizing Board member in her local paper and got...
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Dian Williams: June 2016 Leader of the Month
Dian Williams is a newer Virginia Organizing leader in Portsmouth who got active after learning about Virginia Organizing at a local civic league meeting. "When I heard about all the issues that Virginia Organizing works on, I thought, 'this is me!'"...
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Nancy Carpenter: May 2016 Leader of the Month
For the past four years, Nancy Carpenter has been an active leader in the Charlottesville Chapter of Virginia Organizing. She joined Virginia Organizing because she was interested in supporting a local organization that addresses how state issues aff...
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Ronna Wertman: February 2016 Leader of the Month
Born to deaf parents, Ronna Wertman has been a bridge between deaf and hearing communities all her life. When her mom was in the hospital without access to appropriate interpretation services, Ronna got busy to make sure others in the deaf community...
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Ebony Guy: January 2016 Leader of the Month
When Ebony Guy first moved to Danville, she was looking for community and a way to make a difference. Through Virginia Organizing, she has made real change in real people’s lives! Most recently, Ebony served as a leader in the Danville Chapter’s #Bla...
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Neal Mullins: December 2015 Leader of the Month
Neal Mullins did not know much about natural gas hydrofracking three years ago and he had never heard of Virginia Organizing. After purchasing some land and seeing signs about potential fracking in the area, he decided to attend a Board of Supervisor...
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Phil Grochmal: November 2015 Leader of the Month
South Hampton Roads Chapter leader Phil Grochmal passed away this month following a sudden heart attack. He was known for his passion for his family and politics in the community. In his Chapter, he was known for his passionate organizing for access...
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LaKisha Mahone: October 2015 Leader of the Month
LaKisha (Kisha) Mahone has been a volunteer leader with the Fredericksburg Chapter since February 2015. Kisha and her classmates were doing a research project and chose to study the school-to-prison-pipeline in Spotsylvania County when they came acro...
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Camil Davis: September 2015 Leader of the Month
Camil Davis has been a Petersburg Chapter leader for almost a year. She is actively involved in the local food desert campaign and has a passion for getting people active in her community. "Petersburg is a food desert, which means we have little to n...
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Ayu Yifru: May/June Leader of the Month
Ayu Yifru first became involved in the Harrisonburg Chapter of Virginia Organizing when she saw that changes were needed in her community and she wanted to raise her voice. "Virginia Organizing helps to raise the voices of traditionally silenced peop...
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Kay Meyer: March/April 2015 Leader of the Month
Kay Meyer has been a leader with Virginia Organizing for two years. In that time, she has shown a commitment to leadership development and working on the issues important to her local Chapter and community. She spearheaded efforts to communicate with...
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Elizabeth La Grua: November/December 2014 Leader of the Month
Elizabeth La Grua has been a part of the Augusta/Staunton/Waynesboro Chapter for many years. She first got involved with Virginia Organizing from a partnership on peace issues in her local community. Since then, Elizabeth has worked on a variety of i...
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Davon Miller: January/February 2015 Leader of the Month
Davon Miller got active with Virginia Organizing after a Charlottesville Chapter leader asked him to register to vote and he was unable to since his rights had been taken away. He decided that he wanted to help other people get their right to vote ba...
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Daniel Willson: October 2014 Leader of the Month
Daniel Willson is a Baptist pastor and Virginia Organizing leader in Martinsville. Daniel first got involved after students visited him to talk about Virginia Organizing, but he was already interested in learning more from driving by the local office...
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Deborah Gentry: October 2010
Deborah Gentry of Charlottesville is one of many community leaders engaged in Virginia Organizing’s civic engagement activities. Deborah has volunteered to make thousands of phone calls to help reach our goal. Deborah is familiar with the need...
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