Board of Directors

It's been an honor to be on the Collective Roots board for the past five years. I am passionate about Collective Roots and what our programs represent to the community of East Palo Alto. I believe in our mission of educating children and the community about where our food comes from and how our interactions with the environment influence individual and societal health. I am particularly excited about our new emphasis on food systems change in East Palo Alto and our work to improve school lunches, start and support the East Palo Alto Farmer’s market and influence the city’s food supply.

My dream is that one day our children (and most adults) will understand and appreciate where the food they eat comes from and that we will all make better food choices based on that knowledge. I feel honored to be part of Collective Roots to work toward universal understanding about how our food choices impact our health, the environment and our sense of community. I have worked as a volunteer over the past 5 years to promote better nutrition, obesity prevention and food systems change; I love how Collective Roots brings all of these concepts together in a meaningful way that impacts children and their families. Join me in supporting this effort.

My name is Maria Anaya and I grew up in East Palo Alto. Currently, I work for an education non-profit in Oakland. I am very excited to be a part of Collective Roots and I am thrilled to reconnect to the community in East Palo Alto.

I am honored to be a member of the multi-talented Collective Roots Board. My first memory of working in the garden was planting and harvesting corn and radishes with my father at five years old. The excitement of watching the first shoots appear and then later tasting the freshly pulled radish as we stood in our small backyard garden, shaped my attitudes towards nutrition and the concept that delicious food is fresh food. I am passionate about working with children and families in community gardens as they experience the satisfaction of growing the food they eat.

Steve has a career in commercial and investment real estate that spans nearly thirty years where he has gained extensive experience in the areas of leasing and investment brokerage services, corporate real estate advisory services, strategic planning and asset management. Steve began his career in Oakland, California as an account executive for the property management firm of McKeen~Herzog Co. specializing in management oversight of multi-family income property. Subsequently, he joined CB-Richard Ellis in Fresno, California as an investment specialist selling income producing investment properties throughout central California. In that capacity, he earned top producer recognition in five of seven years of his tenure there.

I am honored and excited to be a member of the board of Collective Roots.  I previously worked as the Garden and Nutrition Education Coordinator at Collective Roots in 2009 but left to have my first baby, and I am very happy to be a part of the Collective Roots community again.  I have an M.S in Nutrition and Public Health from Teachers College, Columbia University, am a registered dietitian and also completed the culinary training program from the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City.  It is obvious that I love food and nutrition and through my education I have become a strong advocate for relocalizing our current food system and creating access to healthy, nutritious food for all communities.  My graduate program also had a strong focus on community nutrition