Laina Green helped start the organization Vegan Community Center after realizing the great need there was to bring vegans together. Laina currently serves as chair of the VCC board of directors while working as a labor organizer and attending law school. With a background that spans teaching, coaching, managing, founding, organizing, and advocating, she wants everyone to have the tools needed to make a difference in the world.

Niko Stavrou founded the SolShift Education Program to help children learn to see the world through perspectives beyond their own. Niko spent fifteen years working with aquariums, diving with animals, building their habitats, and introducing children to marine ecology, and is an experienced instructional designer whose work includes corporate training at Best Buy. A longtime animal rescuer, Niko has cared for pigs, turtles, and sled dogs, and keeps a rescue turtle pond at home. SolShift grew from a simple conviction: the way children learn to see the world can change how they live in it.

Barb Huning MA LP is an advanced-practice complex trauma therapist and founder of Nature's Gate Therapy and Wellness in Minneapolis, MN. Barb leads experiential activities that help people experience moments of insight, connection, guidance and emotional healing by following their natural attractions in interactions with nature.

With three decades as a business executive under her belt, Kelly decided to start Farmaste Animal Sanctuary. She believes strategic thinking and compassion are complementary strengths. She has built Farmaste on both, ensuring rigorous operations in service of animals who arrive from abuse, neglect, and commercial agriculture. Her work centers on the conviction that healing flows in both directions.

Mariyam Nayeri is a chef and movement teacher passionate about empowering others to live vibrant, fulfilling lives. Her love for food and movement began in her grandmother’s kitchen, where she learned to cook, dance, and embrace joy.

Movement has always been her magic balm—transformative, healing, and where her soul resides. As a teacher, she shares this passion through supportive guidance, intuitive sequencing, and space to breathe, grow, and find rhythm.

Rooted in ceremony and deep reverence for the lineage of yoga, her offerings honor tradition while fostering connection and community. Grateful to her teachers, she is dedicated to creating spaces of healing and shared growth.

Anna Larsson is co-chair of The Climate Reality Project, Minnesota. She spends her days working on strategy and finance in the corporate world. By night, she is a long-time climate and environmental activist. She lives with her partner and two teenagers in Minneapolis and loves biking and getting out in nature.

Nicola Philpott runs a plant-based meal program at shelters in the Twin Cities metro area. She has a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology and has written 18 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Nicola enjoys gardening, biking with her teenagers, and walking her dogs.