Welcoming Adriana to Groundswell!
We’re thrilled to welcome Adriana Pickett-Becerra as the new Business Development & ESL Program Coordinator. Adriana’s role at Groundswell is multi-faceted. She is available to provide individual one-to-one guidance to beginning farmers with business development, financial planning and navigating resource opportunities locally or Federally. She is also working closely with our community partners to develop a new ESL farmer training program that supports refugee and immigrant communities. Adriana has already dove right in to connecting with community partners, orienting herself to the Finger Lakes food and farming scene, and implementing a needs assessment for refugee farmers.
She has several decades of experience working at the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn- the only remaining fully Member owned and operated Coop in the country. Working side by side with a very diverse staff of sixty, and a working membership of 17,000- representing an even greater diversity than that of the staff- was instrumental in solidifying a deep working knowledge of the necessary internal and external environment needed to create and sustain a successful cooperative model. She left Brooklyn a year ago with an enlivened belief in the power of relationships, and the ability of diverse communities to achieve common ground through food, and working together side by side.
Adriana accepted the city’s unadvertised call to challenge “everything you thought you ever knew about everything and everyone”. It was an opportunity to gain a PHD in human evolution and self improvement by providing every resident millions of chances per day to: “take action”, “receive feedback”, “consider thoughtfully”, “acknowledge areas of success and others needing improvement”, and most importantly to “correct one’s course”. It was a slow and sometimes painful unfolding that revealed the value of twenty years spent surrendering to the educational process provided by the fast-paced relentless rhythm and irreplaceable multiformity of NYC.
Adriana was born in Mexico. She is the first generation daughter of a Colombian mother and a father of Scottish and English descent. She spent most of her childhood and young adulthood in upstate NY. She studied Music in Syracuse, NY, and studied Solar Engineering in Utica, NY.
She has returned upstate, with a clearer vision, and better understanding of the essential role that each individual plays in fostering the successful growth and development of a just world, one that is strengthened by the collective energy of each individual’s heartfelt desire to change. She is recently arrived here to Ithaca with a heart full of appreciation, and a full basket of passion for food and desire to share with this community she now calls home.
She is looking forward to picking up her guitar more often, and enjoying the the great outdoors with her fearsome toy poodle. She is hoping, in the not too distant future, to have a hand in building her own “a bit larger than tiny” home, and growing food in the backyard.
Feel free to contact Adriana at Adriana@GroundswellCenter.org or call the office at 607-319-5095.