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Staff
Libby Kyles,
Executive Director/Director of Organizational Strategy & Practice
Libby Kyles is the former CEO of the YWCA of Asheville and the founder of Changing LENS Consulting, which focuses on racial and educational equity, professional and personal coaching. A graduate of Western Carolina University, Libby spent 20 years in North Carolina classrooms while also earning her National Board Certification and completing her Masters Degree in Educational Leadership from East Tennessee State University.
While teaching, Libby co-founded Youth Transformed for Life (YTL) in 2014 and served as the Executive Director until June of 2019. Under her leadership, YTL developed two summer and after school programs, GRACE for Teens and ROSES and MOSS for elementary school students and an advocacy program to improve the communication between participants, teachers, and parents.
Libby continues to work in the community as the Chair of the Board for Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust and Vice Chair of the Board for Asheville PEAK Academy Charter School which opens in August 2021. She is also the Chair of The Buncombe County Women’s Commission and contributes to local social justice movements aimed at the liberation of Black people.
Jennifer Langton,
Director of Organizational Grantmaking & Philanthropic Partnerships
Raised in the upper coastal corner of Washington State, Jennifer’s passion led her to work initially in marine biology and on environmental issues, and later on affordable green building practices. She has volunteered her time over the years in grassroots organizing efforts and on various social justice issues including LGBTQ advocacy, voter access, civil rights abuses, and environmental health and preservation. Jennifer applies principles of trust-based philanthropy to her management of grant processes, in her relationships with grantee partners and other funders, and in how she advocates for more transformational systems within philanthropy. She loves researching issues and collaborating with diverse voices in order to build stronger movements of justice. Having spent much of her adult life in the South, she was engaged early in efforts to leverage and expand funding for LGBTQ equality work in the Southeastern U.S. Jennifer’s collaborative work includes Astraea’s LGBTQ Racial Justice Fund and Funders For LGBTQ Issues’ Out in the South Fund. She is a board member of community choir Womansong, and of the Movement Advancement Project, the national LGBTQ think-tank and advocacy organization. Jennifer finds inspiration from her long-time partner, her sisters, her other fabulous family members, friends, and her dogs. She loves creating and listening to music, cooking, hiking, boats and the outdoors. She lives in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina.
Michael Hoeben,
Director of Communications
Miami-born Michael Hoeben is a queer trans man, husband, father, and human rights advocate committed to community welfare optimization by shifting how we engage and interact with human beings on all sides of this shared experience. After graduating from Boston University with a BS in Communications, Michael carved out a career as a freelance researcher/writer, which both informed and strengthened his understanding of systemic oppression strategies and impacts. This learning deepened his desire to be an active part of dismantling these forces. In 2019, Michael took the career-change leap and landed in community health where he focused on transgender health and HIV prevention/care services, education, outreach, and development. In 2020, Michael and his wife, Myela, launched OUTthINK Studio, a queer-centric digital arts studio, believing in the power of seeing and celebrating the “Other” as critical in breaking down the biases and barriers that continue to divide the human family. Michael is also the former Vice President of the Board and Community Partner Fund Director at Blue Ridge Pride. Michael’s passion is intersectional social justice work, knowing that a values-based lens is critical to correcting the systemic wrongs that continue to impede meaningful representation and inclusion for all people.
Tera Coffey,
Director of Community-Led Grantmaking
Tera Coffey kickstarted her career as an organizer focused on creating impactful messaging and building strong community-driven outreach while leading Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign operations during the 2016 Presidential election in Florida and the 2020 election in Detroit. Her government experience includes legislative policy analysis and strategy, communication development, and constituent and organizational relationship building in Texas at both state and county levels. She brings her passion for racial equity and relationship cultivation to her philanthropic service, consulting with Western North Carolina-based funders as a facilitator and thought partner in building grant systems and accountability measures necessary to drive deep, systemic change. As the founder of Tera Coffey Consulting, Tera offers strategic guidance in community engagement, communication, marketing, and fundraising for political and non-profit organizations. Tera holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Economics from Franklin University Switzerland. She moved to Asheville from Houston, Texas, her hometown, in search of community with her husband, Nathan, their dog, Karl Barx, and two cats, Pistacchio and Cassie. She has a passion for all things fine arts, political activism, travel, and cooking.
Zeke Christopoulos,
Director of Mindful Operations & Finance
Ezekiel Christopoulos, affectionately known as “Zeke,” has thirty years of experience spanning operations, corporate finance, nonprofit management, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. In 2001, Zeke founded Tranzmission, an Asheville-based nonprofit serving the Southeast’s nonbinary and transgender community through education, advocacy, and support programs, with fierce anti-racist, social justice, and for-us-by-us tenets at the heart of the organization. He was also instrumental in launching the Asheville Jewish Community Center’s LGBTQ Jew program in 2014.
Zeke began a career in corporate finance in 2008, initially as a branch manager and then as an area manager, leading offices across Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina, and Eastern Tennessee. He received multiple awards for client service and community involvement. In addition to these roles, he led the Asian American, Disability, and Pride Employee Resource Groups at local and enterprise levels. Most recently, Zeke served as Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion during his last five years at a top ten US financial institution.
Zeke’s lived experience as a Middle Eastern, Jewish, queer, and transgender person has informed his passion for social justice. His work has spanned local, state, and national efforts, focusing on historically underserved and underfunded communities in the southeast. Zeke enjoys being in beloved community, traveling, biking, hiking, growing vegetables, and having culinary experiences with his spouse, Caroline, and their child, Cosima.
Board of Directors
Tamiko Ambrose Murray,
Board Chair
Tamiko is the founder and lead consultant of Ambrose Consulting. A writer, community researcher, cultural practitioner and racial equity strategist, Tamiko’s areas of work have included nonprofit leadership, academia, community organizing, participatory research and cultural work. She believes transformation is possible when the most impacted communities are centered in the work to uproot oppression and to build the world we want to live in, one that is rooted in justice and love and where everyone has what they need to thrive. She has called Asheville, NC home for 24 years.
Carmen Ramos-Kennedy
Carmen was born in New York City and attended the New School of Social Research. She identifies as a Black, Nuyorican and Afro-Latinx cisgender woman. A good part of her adult life was lived in Southern California where she, and her husband Bruce, raised their two now adult daughters and ran their media and marketing business. Looking for a life that nourished their spirits more, they sold their beach community home in 2005, bought a 40ft motor coach and a tow vehicle, and toured the contiguous U.S. visiting all but one state. After 2 years on the road, she and Bruce settled in Asheville, NC in 2007.
In her work life since arriving in Asheville, she has managed or staffed local, county, state and national political campaigns and done grassroots work for local non-profits. Since arriving in Asheville she has served as President of the Asheville Buncombe County NAACP, Team Leader for the Mountain People’s Assembly, core organizer of the local Racial Equity Institute (REI) trainings, facilitator with Building Bridges of Asheville, member of Asheville City Council Neighborhood Advisory Committee, board member of Pack Place, and an officer of the East End / Valley Street Neighborhood Association. She has also worked with Children First afterschool program, Read To Succeed, Barriers to Re-entry Roundtable (reimagining the formerly incarcerated returning to the community), Community Race Discussion Group,
Carmen currently serves as the Co-chair of the Racial Justice Coalition (RJC), the Director of Equity and Community Engagement at BeLoved Asheville and is on the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) Advisory Board. In her free time, Carmen enjoys watching classic films, reading political science and history books, cooking, and socializing with friends. She’s looking forward to when everyone can safely gather together again so she can spend quality time as BiBi for a very special little fellow.
Deborah Miles
Deborah grew up in southern Arkansas, graduated from Hendrix College with a BA in 1975, and moved to Asheville later that summer. Her first job was working as a shelter parent (as they were called at that time) with Caring for Children at Our Place Emergency Shelter. Miles was also a founder of Stone Soup which was a worker owned restaurant and part of the early food scene in Asheville. In 1995, Miles started the Center for Diversity Education at the Jewish Community Center which later moved to UNC Asheville. The mission of the Center is to teach and celebrate diversity in order to foster conversation and respect among cultures. During her tenure, each year the Center provided programming for over 25,000 students, teachers and citizens throughout Western North Carolina. It also provided services to the local business and non-profit community for diversity trainings, walking tours, and exhibit rentals. Part of the work of the Center was also to develop coalitions to support the cross organizational work of equity and inclusion which included Everybody’s Environment, the Racial Justice Coalition, and the WNC Diversity Engagement Coalition. Miles retired from UNC Asheville in 2018 and now does consulting work on equity and inclusion accountability practices in the workplace. Miles is married to Marc Rudow and together they are the parents of three sons and two grandchildren.
Kit Molina-Nauert
Kit Molina-Nauert is active in local movement and community work, with a particular focus on racial justice and affordable housing. Most recently, Kit has worked at the Asheville Buncombe Community Land Trust and the Racial Justice Coalition. She has volunteered with CoThinkk, Code with Asheville, WNC AAPI, the Keep it Moving Coalition, Just Economics Affordable Housing Strategy Team, the Montford & Stumptown Fund, Arms Around ASD, and other local social justice-driven organizations. A resident of Western North Carolina for 25 years, Kit feels rooted and committed to this land and people. When not in community, Kit spends most of her time dancing bachata, salsa, and cumbia.
Mike Holmes
Mike Holmes (they/theirs) is a dynamic and dedicated multidisciplinary artist from Asheville, NC. Growing up in the area, Mike witnessed the resilience of Appalachian communities firsthand; these experiences inform their community work practices and philosophy. Mike’s advocacy focuses on inclusivity, drawing from their diverse background to support and amplify marginalized voices. At Tzedek, Mike continues challenging white supremacy by centering systematically marginalized communities, believing in the power of creative vision to foster meaningful change.
Tuesday Feral
Mx. Tuesday Feral is a neurodivergent nonbinary transgender educator, coach, counselor, and consultant who has spent the last fifteen years giving direct support to gender-diverse people in Western North Carolina. Shortly after arriving in the area in 2008, they began working with Tranzmission, an organization supporting nonbinary and transgender people, eventually founding the support programs in 2010 and serving as the director of the program for a decade, creating and facilitating support meetings, overseeing the Talya Mazuz food pantry, and connecting individuals with the resources they needed to the best of their ability.
Tuesday has also been teaching workshops and training on a local, state, and national level since 2009 and offers a unique, trauma-informed perspective to their counseling, coaching, consulting, and teaching. In their current counseling practice, they primarily support transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive youth, and as a supportive coach, they work with adults who are navigating transition as well as working with family members or loved ones of trans and/or nonbinary people. As a consultant, they support individuals and groups of helping professionals who want to offer more comprehensive, appropriate care to the trans and nonbinary folx they serve. With a passionate dedication to creating and nurturing supportive connections and networks for nonbinary and trans people and their families, Tuesday finds great fulfillment in working within and alongside these communities and organizations. They live with their beloved feline companion in a small cabin surrounded by delightfully overgrown gardens in Western North Carolina, and in their free time, Tuesday can be found spending time in nature, tending their gardens and plants, singing silly songs to their aquatic snail, engaging in creative endeavors, dancing with abandon, nerding out about trauma and attachment or other topics of interest, and connecting with loved ones.
Founder and Funder
Amy Mandel
Amy was born into a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1950s. She moved to the Boston area to attend Brandeis University and stayed in the area for 32 years. Her first exposure to social justice activism came through reading about the resistance to the Holocaust in the fifth grade. Throughout Amy’s college years she was involved in anti-Vietnam protests. She participated in the second wave of the U.S. women’s movement and the growing post-Stonewall LGBT movement. In her philanthropic work, Amy has become increasingly focused on efforts to build bridges and alliances between and among communities that have traditionally been at odds. This focus includes following the lead of grassroots organizers and supporting efforts that amplify voices and issues of those most harmed by unjust systems. Amy moved to North Carolina to pursue medical treatment in 2001, has never regretted it and feels firmly planted. These days Amy enjoys spending time with her friends and family, enjoying better health that is enabling her to be more present in the community, and singing with her beloved women’s chorus, Womansong of Asheville.