Be The Change, See the Change Series

In these times, with much to fight against and defend, there are also tools, stories, and practices for how we can live now so that we are hopeful, healing, and strategic for the world we want for our children, ourselves, and our future generations. From land use to food distribution, to community organizing, or finances, the series will help us learn how we can be the change. Let’s see the seeds that are sprouting for expanding possibilities for justice and care for the future we seek by building it now.

Our events are in person at Brooklyn Ethical, 269 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY on Sundays at 11am.
If you cannot attend in person. a hybrid link will also be sent to those who RSVP.
Let us know you are coming. RSVP HERE

Save the date for the whole series:

Sept 20– From the Hood to the Woods with Kyung-Ji Kate Rhee and the Center for Nu Leadership
Join us as we welcome members of the Center for NuLeadership on Human Justice and Healing as they share their growing stories of land stewardship as part of their community healing. Following the lessons of their founder, Eddie Ellis (RIP), we will learn how moving from the urban life of mass incarceration and systemic racism to land-based healing and engagement can build pathways to personal, community and political liberation using nature as the wise guide. Presided by our member, Rebecca Lurie, with music brought to us by our own, DuPree and Barry Kornhouser.

Oct 25 – Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness with author/activist Yotam Marom for Louder Days
In For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness, Marom offers a brilliant, lyrical clarion cry for a more honest, more strategic, more loving approach to progressive activism and movement building. Grounded in decades of experience in movements, from leading at Occupy Wall Street and other movement moments to supporting some of the most important climate, racial justice, and democracy movements of our time, Marom dives deep into the challenges that hold movements back and offers stories, tools, and paths toward real power and enduring change.

Nov 22 – Guided By Community: Swapping, Repairing & Gifting with Andrea Reyes
What already exists within our communities that can be shared, exchanged, repaired, reimagined, or passed forward?
Join A. Bernadette for a conversation about how we build community through the things we already have—and the skills, stories, resources, and responsibilities we share. Drawing from her Guided By Community work, Andrea Reyes will explore how exchange can become a practice of community building, inviting us to think beyond consumption toward participation, reciprocity, creativity, and care.
The Platform will launch BSEC’s Holiday Community Swap, a seasonal series exploring what happens when we approach the holidays through exchange and connection rather than consumption alone.
Stay after the Platform for our first Holiday Decoration Swap! Bring decorations you no longer use and exchange them for something new-to-you.

Dec 13 – Feeding Our Community: Strengthening Our Food System for Resilience and Justice with Brooklyn Packers
Right here in Brooklyn, a small and mighty network for food provisioning is growing, connecting small to mid-sized farms and sustainable food producers to our communities to build true food sovereignty from Hudson to Brooklyn and beyond. Meet Brooklyn Packers: “As a Black-led, worker-owned team, we believe that good food should be grown by and for the people.No middlemen or big corporations—just neighbors feeding neighbors, building real food access and justice together.”

Let us know you are coming. RSVP HERE

Bios:

Kyung-Ji Kate Rhee oversees the policy, advocacy and training agenda at CNHJH. She is nationally recognized for her expertise in campaign strategy development, youth justice advocacy and dynamic training design for system and community stakeholders on culture change, racial disparity and leadership growth. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), a project of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, and the Steering Committee of the New York City Task Force on Racial Disparity in the Juvenile Justice System. She has been featured in a range of publications, including Utne Reader (Top 30 Visionaries under 30), Village Voice, The Source (Top 10 Artists, Albums, & Political Players of the Year), The KoreAm Magazine, Gotham Gazette, New York Sun and Brooklyn Free Press, among others. She received her BA from the University of Chicago, where she worked with Michelle Obama and Pamela Bozeman to launch a public service community summer internship program for University of Chicago students.

Yotam Marom is an organizer, facilitator, and writer with over twenty years of experience in movements. He played a leadership role at Occupy Wall Street and many movement moments since, and spends much of his time as a strategy and group process facilitator for social movement organizations like Sunrise, Dream Defenders, Uncommitted, IfNotNow, CAAAV, and others. His book, For Louder Days, was published this past June by the New Press.

Andrea Reyes is a fair trade advocate, educator, researcher, and the creator of A. Bernadette, a platform exploring community, sustainability, leadership, and the systems that shape how we live and work together.
As Executive Director of the NYC Fair Trade Coalition, Andrea has spent more than a decade building community-driven initiatives around sustainable fashion, including swaps, educational programs, and the Sustainable Fashion Community Center. Her current Guided By book series explores our relationships to community, materiality, power, and the future, asking how we might build systems that are more participatory, regenerative, and connected.
Andrea is a doctoral candidate at Pace University and co-author of Apparel Costing, published by Bloomsbury. She is currently taking her books on the road, hosting talks and workshops with communities around the globe and seeing what happens when these ideas leave the page and are put into practice.
Want to bring a Guided By conversation to your community? Invite Andrea to your backyard—or wherever your community gathers.

Karna Ray has spent the last decade developing networks of practice, knowledge, logistics, and distribution in the Northeast. He has worked with the Brooklyn Packers for six years, managing the organization’s financial and operational growth through contracts and grants at the municipal, state and federal level. He is currently managing the implementation of a Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant, aiming at strengthening core cold-chain infrastructure to support market access for producers in New York State.
Previously, Karna served as the Northeast Markets Program Manager at Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment, overseeing federal funding from the USDA’s Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities program. His program focused on BIPOC producers in the Northeast who employ regenerative and traditional agricultural practices to serve as stewards of their ecologies, soils, and communities.
Karna is proud to serve as a member of the New York City Food Policy Council. He is also an active member of the Groceries for All Coalition convened by Community Food Advocates, which represents vital stakeholders and operators advocating for equitable supply and just labor in the city’s public grocery initiative. He is a Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center 40 Under 40 awardee.