Windcall Residents 2007 & 2008

Greta Gladney of New Orleans, Louisiana is a fourth generation Lower Ninth Ward resident, wife, mother of three and grandmother of three. A trained facilitator, Greta is founder and Executive Director of the Renaissance Project, a community development initiative focused on revitalizing communities along the Saint Claude Avenue corridor and improving the quality of life in the Lower Ninth Ward. Greta’s work focuses on rebuilding neighborhoods via food access through farmers markets, economic development via small and microenterprise, and quality public education through community schools. The Renaissance Project operates two farmers markets and serves as administrative arm for Students at the Center, Listen to the People, New Orleans Arts Exchange, Saint Claude Avenue Merchants Association and Downtown Neighborhood Market Consortium. She holds a BS in chemistry from Xavier University, a BA in philosophy from the University of New Orleans and an MBA from Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Father Vien Nguyen is the pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church and Chair of Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation in East New Orleans. Since the Katrina disaster, he has been integrally involved in the struggle and rebuilding of his community, home to the third largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans in the U.S. He traveled 10,000 miles to find evacuees throughout the South to ensure that members of the Vietnamese American community received relief services and returned to New Orleans. Since saving lives during the storm, he has become known throughout the city and has grown to prominence in the fight and eventual win against a toxic landfill in New Orleans East. Father Ngyuen is deeply committed to working to ensure that communities have a strong voice in determining public policies that truly serve people. He is recipient of the special Gulf Coast Community Health Leadership Award by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy of the Tides Foundation.

Sylvia Ortega of Chicago, Illinois is a Community Organizer, Political Activist and Co-Founder of the Bush Homeowners and Tenant Association (BHTA). The Bush is a community in the Southeast side of Chicago devastated by the closing of U.S. Steel and many other industrial corporations. BHTA was organized to build a much-needed school and to make sure that members of the community have a voice in decisions about new development in the neighborhood. For the past 10 years, Sylvia and other members of BHTA have fought against Tax Increment Finance Districts and gentrification in the neighborhood. Accomplishments include the establishment of a new school with community governance, an award-winning community garden, and the launch of a program to prevent obesity in children. Sylvia has also worked on Harold Washington’s Mayoral Campaigns and was elected as an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention under Harold Washington’s Favorite Son Slate. She serves as a board member for the South Chicago Neighborhood Housing Service and The South Chicago Housing Task Force.

Amanda Solon is a community organizer and grant writing professional. She is currently working as a Grants Operations Specialist for CJE SeniorLife in Chicago. Prior to this position, Amanda was Executive Director of Metro Seniors in Action, a citywide senior advocacy organization in Chicago. She served Metro Seniors for over 15 years, first in the capacity of Community Organizer for six years and then as Executive Director for almost ten. She began her organizing career with SEIU Local 880 in Chicago, organizing home care workers. She is a founding member of the Neighbors of Edgewater West (NEW) and currently serves as President. In addition to working with her neighborhood organization, Amanda is active in her local school and PTA. She is also a vegan and animal rights activist and has worked on many campaigns on behalf of non-human animals. She lives in Chicago with her husband, three children, two dogs and two turtles.

2007 WINDCALL RESIDENTS

Xochitl Bervera
Co-director, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, New Orleans, LA
Xochitl Bervera is a trained facilitator specializing in campaign development aimed at helping coalitions and grassroots organizations build power to win. She is co-founder of FFLIC, a statewide membership-based organization dedicated to creating a better life for Louisiana’s youth. Bervera’s leadership was integral to FFLIC’s signature achievement: the passage of legislation that closed the brutal Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth. FFLIC continues to organize for more community based services and the closure of other youth facilities. Bervera previously organized against the war, conducted juvenile defense, staffed a legal clinic for gay and lesbian youth, and provided media training to social justice groups.

Norris Henderson
Soros Justice Fellow and Co-Director, Safe Streets/Strong Communities, New Orleans, LA
As someone who was wrongfully incarcerated for 27 years, Norris Henderson knows first hand the racism and brutality of the criminal justice system. Self-taught during his incarceration as a paralegal, advocate and organizer, he now works with Safe Streets/Strong Communities, promoting community organizing and advocacy campaigns to transform the criminal justice system in New Orleans. Henderson has had tremendous success impacting public policy regarding police accountability and public defense for poor people as well as in reforming the notorious Orleans Parish Prison. He provides valuable insights into the concerns of prisoners, the formerly incarcerated and their families while building bridges with other communities of color, particularly immigrant workers. Henderson founded Voice of the Ex-Offender (VOTE) to educate, organize and mobilize formerly incarcerated persons about their right to vote in Louisiana.

Bill Henning
Executive Director, Boston Center for Independent Living, Boston, MA
SEIU Ambassador for Justice Awardee
Bill Henning is currently the Executive Director of the BCIL, which provides services to over 5,000 individuals with disabilities of any age and which is a leading advocacy voice for people with disabilities in Massachusetts. Previously he worked at the Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled in Hyannis. Henning has helped spearhead campaigns to improve healthcare, housing, transportation, and enforcement of civil rights laws for people with disabilities, employing strategies that include direct action, traditional legislative advocacy, and class-action lawsuits. He has been arrested nine times for civil disobedience in conjunction with the national disability-rights group ADAPT and has worked behind the scenes to secure passage of at least six pieces of legislation enhancing the independence of people with disabilities. He also helped build an alliance between people with disabilities and homecare workers, which led to legislation to improve pay and benefits for caregivers and improved services. Previously, he worked with Vietnam veterans, Mexican farm workers in Idaho, and people on welfare.

Pastor Emilio Hernandez
Organizer, Connecticut Center for a New Economy, New Haven, CT
SEIU Ambassador for Justice Awardee
Pastor Emilio Hernandez is Pastor of Knowing God Ministries in New Haven, CT, a multicultural church that is involved with the community. He has also worked for six years with the Connecticut Center for a New Economy, where he is an organizer with CORD (Community Organized for Responsible Development). CORD’s first major campaign for community benefits from Yale’s New Haven Hospital expansion project resulted in an agreement providing for housing and economic development, community hiring, and the right to hold a fair union election (after nine years!) for 1,800 workers. On a statewide level, Rev. Hernandez has organized clergy to become involved in social justice. He was the lead organizer for a statewide coalition that brought together Hispanic, African American and white ministers to collaborate on issues of social justice in 2006. Rev. Hernandez is part of the leadership of the New Haven Association of Hispanic Evangelical Ministers (AMEHN). The Association is helping pastors through Connecticut begin clergy associations in their own areas with a social justice and community organizing focus.

Beni Ivey
Center for Democratic Renewal, Atlanta, GA
An activist for civil and human rights since the 1960s, Beni Ivey has worked on countless voter education drives and helped raise millions of dollars for progressive organizations and political campaigns. She co-founded the Georgia Black United Fund in 1975 and continues to provide fundraising support to emerging community groups in the South. Since 1993, Ivey has been Executive Director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, the nation’s leading organization documenting hate crimes and assisting communities with strategies to combat racism, anti-Semitism, religious intolerance and homophobia. CDR recently launched a documentation and organizing effort encompassing a broader array of human rights abuses, including police violence and attacks on immigrants.

Reverend Sam E. Mann
St. Mark Union Church and United Inner City Services, Kansas City, MO
Rev. Mann has been Pastor Administrator of St. Mark Union Church and Executive Director of United Inner City Services for 33 years, overseeing social services, community development, street organizations, and violence prevention programs. He has been a long-time civil rights activist, having marched in numerous demonstrations including the march for garbage workers in Memphis and the march against the Vietnam War led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was part of the U.S. delegation that visited Dr. Nelson Mandela right after his release from prison. Dr. Mann has been jailed for civil disobedience on several occasions for his activity. He served as a key participant along with the late Dr. Mac Charles Jones (another former Windcall resident) in the national effort to respond to the burning of black churches. He is co-founder of the project “Reframing the Dialogue on Race in America” which addresses white supremacy and white privilege. He seeks to inspire white ministers to address racism in their congregations.

Ursula Price
Outreach & Investigations Coordinator, Safe Streets/Strong Communities, New Orleans, LA
Safe Streets/Strong Communities is a community-based organization that campaigns for a new criminal justice system in New Orleans, one that creates safe streets and strong communities for everyone, regardless of race or economic status. Price has been a long-time advocate for poor people and people of color in the criminal justice system, including those facing the death penalty, with organizations such A Fighting Chance and Louisiana Capital Assistance. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit, Price documented the stories of those who were incarcerated, many for lengthy periods of times without being convicted, who were caught in the rising waters. Price’s work is now focused on reforming the Orleans Parish Jail System to ensure that jails and detention are only used to protect public safety or ensure appearance in court (decreasing the numbers of people held simply because they are without representation or charged with minor crimes), create greater public transparency and reduce patronage, replace the current jail complex with a more safe and appropriate facility, and expand alternatives to incarceration.

Maureen Ridge
Health Systems Senior Organizer, Service Employees International Union, Madison, WI
Maureen Ridge is a long-time SEIU organizer, mostly in Massachusetts and now on the road. She began her work life at age 14 working grueling split shifts in a Boston hospital. Seven years later, she was approached by a union organizer and her commitment to empowering people (and herself) has been steadfast ever since. She has risen in the SEIU ranks and along the way has led the successful fight to keep a community hospital from closing and championed the rights of Head Start workers. She has also worked in coalitions addressing contingent labor exploitation as well as housing and public education in Boston. (Pictured with her son, Reggie Gossett, an organizer in New York)

Carole Zoom
Board Member, McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, Portland, OR
Carole Zoom grew up with Muscular Dystrophy at a time when sidewalks, buildings, busses and even the public schools of her hometown of Knoxville were inaccessible to her. Since 1988, she has served as Executive Director for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities and as an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation, Stand for Children, and Lane Independent Living Alliance as well as Program Director for the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts. She helped organize for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Air Carriers Access Act, and Fair Housing Amendments and for full access to the Federal Courthouse in Eugene, OR. Zoom is a photographer and Japanese woodblock artist, published in the Wall Street Journal, Country Living Magazine, Portland Monthly, Eugene Weekly and other media outlets. (Self Portrait)