Vanessa bolin

Email: vanessa(at)commongrainalliance(dot)org

Vanessa Bolin is CGA’s Agricultural Leadership Development Initiative (ALDI) Program Manager. She is an Indigenous farmer, artist, activist, teacher and founder of the Eyes Wide Open Project, Richmond Indigenous Society, and Community Roots Garden. She sits on the boards of the Ogalala Lakota Cultural Economic Initiative OLCERI  and Mutal Aid Disaster Relief National. She studied Paramedic Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. Vanessa has traveled across the United States and to multiple countries providing humanitarian aid and support. She spends her time in community helping to build and support grassroots organizations and provides training in marginalized communities educating about food sovereignty,decolonized and integrated medicine,transformative justice, environmental racism, and raises awareness about murdered and missing Indigenous Women among other topics. Believing that it is everyone’s responsibility to defend this sacred earth she sets out each day to make the world a better place and is striving to help build the world we all want to live in.