Meet Tarik Abdullah - chef, community activist, and founder of Feed The People. This Seattle native has been cooking for 20+ years between Los Angeles and his home, the “Evergreen” state. Growing up in a community of various cultures - spanning from the Middle East to South East Asia, and Africa to the Mediterranean - spices have always been the inspiration of his cooking, while the passion and “hard work” ethic came from his parents. Through his love for food, he has brought communities together with his platforms such as Midnight Mecca and After Dark, incorporating youth by giving them opportunities through food. He has garnered media attention throughout the US from his project Guide to Washington with Vice, to receiving the 2018 Mayor’s Art Award for his continued community work. Along with other local chefs, Tarik has formed the Seattle Community Kitchen Collective to offer free meals for those in need, which Tarik also does with his project Feed the People Community Kitchen.
Malcolm Procter (AKA WolfDeLux) is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist from Seattle Washington. Blessed to have been born and raised in early 90's Seattle, Procter found himself surrounded by inspiring artists of all mediums, and was quickly taken by their work and ability to produce emotion and thought. Malcolm collaborated with Chef Tarik Abdullah to lead the local community in creating the space that is now the Feed the People Plaza. You can follow Malcolm on instagram at @wolfdelux.
Leah Van Winkle is an organizer, farmer, educator, healer, human and more. Her passion lies in educating to empower - having the means to grow our own food and medicine puts real power in our hands. To be food and health sovereign and in harmony with land and the ecosystem we are a part of is her guiding vision. Leah is a Core Organizer with Cob On Wood, a place-based project at a West Oakland encampment of unhoused and marginally housed people, and a Core Organizer with Permaculture Action Network, an organization dedicated to mobilizing people and resources toward land-based projects around the country.
LeaJay Harper is a Oakland native born and raised to a biracial, 3rd generation single mother & art teacher. With a strong history of working to change local and statewide policy specifically addressing the needs of young women and girls in the criminal justice system and a passion for the arts in her blood, Leajay has lived on the streets as an unhoused resident for the last 7 years. Currrently she is a resident leader in Oakland's largest encampment.
Ridhi D'Cruz (they/them) is a gender queer person from South India. Ridhi moved to Wapato Valley (Portland) in 2010, where they are honored to live as a guest on the sacred ancestral lands of the Chinook People and the many other vibrant local Indigenous communities. Ridhi has dedicated over a decade of their life to designing individual, interpersonal, and collective processes that nurture a sense of place and belonging. As a place justice practitioner, Ridhi roots into a radical praxis of self and collective care and connection to the more-than-human world for to support the creativity of Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (QTBIPOC) and people with lived experience with houselessness. They are honored to be able to practice their life artistry at the intersections of place, healing and creative justice. Ridhi weaves this place-based practice through their work as an independent facilitator and artist and also through their role as Co-Executive Director of the City Repair Project, co-teacher of an urban Permaculture Design Course, and a core artist residency with Stelo Arts.
