Alsie Parks is an Atlanta-native, that advocates and activates the use of food as an organizing tool for healing and liberation. As a child of the south, she is the granddaughter of educators, sharecroppers, and black land owners with ancestral land in Lincolnton, GA. As a farmer organizer, agrarian cultural worker, food systems practitioner, land steward and nurturer she serves by cultivating intimate and responsive relationships with and for the land and our people that activate remembrance, honor sacred traditions and shares in the practice of Black land-based lifeways and foodways. She currently serves as the Director of Field Organizing for SAAFON and is the former Southern Regional Organizer for the National Black Food & Justice Alliance. In addition to her work with SAAFON, Alsie is a founding core member of Fort Negrita Cooperative, Black Mycelium Project, and the Black Agrarian Workers of the South Collective (BAWS). She values the love, labor and intelligence of farmers, black cultural geographies, storytelling, truth telling, kitchen magic, hospitality, porch talks, sisterhood, big mama energy, being queer and being expansive.
The fund now welcomes funding from a broad array of donors to continue to support rural Black community self determination throughout the Black Belt region.