Debra Evans was raised in Beaumont Texas, located in Southeast Texas.

She is a computer programmer going on 43 years.

The most important thing to Debra is her family.

Her desire is to make a difference in someone's life. She loves working with young people, once Covid-19 is over, her goal is to work in a youth mentoring program.

Debra’s favorite quote is, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

-Maya Angelou

My name is Leroy Edwards. I’m a half black half Puerto Rican man with a gorgeous wife and a beautiful baby girl. I was born and raised in Vineland, NJ by my mother Liz and stepfather Ike. They took real good care of me and my younger brother Isiah. They worked at the casinos, so they mostly worked nights which meant my brother and I spent a lot of our days at our grandma or great aunts house. I graduated from Vineland high in 2004 and started working in the casinos right away myself. Met my wife when I was 21 and married her when I was 32. Right now I am a federal officer, and couldn’t ask for a better blessed life.

Denisha L. Price was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, IL. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Law Enforcement & Administration with a minor in Security Management from Western Illinois University. She also received a Masters in Sports Management. In 2014 she worked for the State of Illinois as a Juvenile Justice Specialist/Correctional Officer and saw the need for additional community improvement programming in the Chicagoland area. In 2015, she began living out her dream as a Chicago Police Officer. Mental health became a huge focal point in Denisha’s life during 2018 while embarking on her own wellness journey. She saw first hand through her own struggles just how important mental wellness really was in her life. Denisha founded Authentic Praise Ministry Inc. aspiring to meet the spiritual, social, and physical needs of members of Chicago’s underserved and underrepresented communities. She vows to push the importance of mental health to the forefront until the stigma is shattered.

Tony Chatman, 32, is a member of the United States Air Force Reserves based out of Florida, serving as a 7 year and counting Munition System Specialist and is a veteran of the War on Terrorism, serving in Afghanistan. 

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey and raised between there, Pleasantville, NJ & Tappahannock, VA, Tony witnessed many peaks and valleys throughout his community.

Prior to serving in the military, Tony served the public as a Police Officer for almost 5 years. A graduate of Stockton University in with a bachelors of Arts in Criminal Justice, he enjoyed the challenges of finding his independence and himself along with the adventures that groomed him into the man his is today.

While serving in the military, Tony also worked as a Football coach at Pleasantville High School in Pleasantville, NJ before relocating to Southern Florida. He believes in giving back to the community and helping the next generation become the future leaders of tomorrow.

Paige Vaccaro was born on Long Island to loving parents who happened to come from different racial and religious backgrounds. Her mother, Paula is Jewish and of Russian and English descent, whose father Milton served as a pilot in WWII. Her father, Michael, was an African-American raised Baptist in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with family roots that traced back to slavery. He attended a segregated school and faced racism in the height of the Civil Rights Movement while on athletic scholarship at Tennessee State. The two met while teaching in the same elementary school, kindergarten and physical education respectively, just 7 years after the Loving case made interracial marriage legal.

Paige began writing poetry in 7th grade and throughout her schooling was recognized as having a gift with words. The summer of her junior year of high school she took a journalism course at NYU for young women of color and that was where her passion for using her writing and eye for photography to promote social change. She went on to study English and Political Science at Rutgers University and graduated with honors as a Henry Rutgers Scholar. After college, Paige was accepted into Teach for America and completed student teaching in the Bronx before relocating to Baltimore where she taught 3rd grade and earned her MAT in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University.

After 12 years of teaching in public schools in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Newark, and Ocean Township, NJ, Paige relocated to Atlantic County and set out to forage new paths to bridge the gaps within and between communities by founding the nonprofit organization, Communities Revolutionizing Open Public Spaces (C.R.O.P.S.). C.R.O.P.S. connects communities through farmers markets, community gardens, paid internships, and educational programming. www.cropsnj.org She has also penned a few blogs such as www.pushingthependulum.com and started a small business called Plant A Seed, LLC where she provides educational and garden consulting as well as yoga, meditation and Vedic numerology.

Paige’s zeal for helping others parallels her deep-rooted connection to the earth, which she believes is a great equalizer. By empowering people to connect with nature and with one another, she believes that everyone benefits regardless of their age, socioeconomic status, experience, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. She believes with unequivocal faith that small, positive gestures have a deep and lasting impact on the community at large and the individual within. Her father used to say, “Girl, no grass grows under your feet!” That saying is true because you can always find her on the move with her four children right beside her, planting seeds everywhere she can and nurturing them with love.

South Jersey

Retail Supervisor

Constitutional Rights and Citizen Privacy

Learn and Inform others on political advocacy.

“Where ever you go, there you are”

Jeremiah Simmons grew up in multiple locations but mainly Keansburg and Egg Harbor Township, NJ. His background is in retail, personal training and law enforcement.

Jeremiah’s family, friends, and loved ones are the most important aspects of his life. Seeing them grow and be successful is inspiring. He wants to one day be able to look back and know that he did everything he could to make this world a safer and easier place to live in.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” - Buddha

My name is Bonkosi Alyssa Horn aka “Bon” or “Alyssa” and I am a Congolese-Iowan living and shifting paradigms in Philadelphia. Co-founder and creative director of freedom apothecary, a lifestyle brand with an emphasis on representation and accessibility; owner of stripp’d cold-pressed juice and the guardhouse, with 10+ years in brand strategy, community-building and experiential design at both local and global scales; a mother of 2 superhero boys and a little lady debuting this summer; inherent ultra-connector of people, community-builder and innovator in constant pursuit of growth and making the world a better place.

I spent the first 11 years out of college in brand, strategy and community building within a retail company (lululemon) and am now a multi-entrepreneur with a passion for community and justice.

My community: family, friends, neighbors, humanity; equity + justice; self-expression and embodied living and joy are most important to me. I am here to change the world. Full stop.

“No one is a stranger.”

A Philadelphia native, Khoran Horn is no stranger to the city or its fabric. Raised in both Philadelphia and South Jersey gave him the ability to adapt to multiple environments. Khoran pursued culinary arts early on, finding inspiration from his mother at home, dad at work, and his home-ec teacher at high school. After graduating top of his class at Johnson & Wales he pursued the business side of things in hotel and restaurant management. Shortly after he became dejected from the industry, and promised to “never work for another” in an industry he was so passionate about. During this layoff is where he met his wife (celebrated by three children) and sought to build his own concepts in Stripp’d Juice and other restaurant endeavors. In 2020 Khoran still has his foot on the pedal, and wants to shift into a broader focus of how to affect positive change amongst his community.

Nate Evans Jr. is a millennial leader and change agent. Nate is a first-generation high school and college graduate. He is a consultant, mental health advocate, fitness trainer, self-published author (Building Muscle Life is Your Trainer), and inspirational speaker. His passion is to “CHANGE WHAT WE NORMALIZE” in order to eradicate the stigma around mental health in African American and under-served communities was inspired by his own battles with mental health issues as a teen and young adult.