Nikki Henderson is the current Executive Director of People’s Grocery. People’s Grocery is a health and wealth organization – our mission is to improve the health and economy of West Oakland through the local food system. We pursue positive community change and address social determinants of health through a food lens. We work to ensure that community self-determination plays a large part in the revitalization of low-income neighborhoods.

Nikki began her work in social justice through the foster care system in Southern California, having been raised with seven older foster brothers. Through mentoring, tutoring, and directing Foster Youth Empowerment Workshops, she developed her passion for youth leadership development among communities of color. She later shifted into sustainability, developing course curriculum for the University of California system and advocating across the state for environmental justice and political ecology.

She has worked closely with Van Jones and Phaedra Ellis Lamkins at Green for All, fighting for a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. She was also a part of Slow Food USA in Brooklyn, NY where President Josh Viertel came to regard her as an “extraordinary leader with a vision for how food and urban farming can be tools of empowerment”. In 2009, Nikki co-founded Live Real, a national collaborative of food movement organizations committed to strengthening and expanding the youth food movement in the United States. In 2010, Nikki was featured in ELLE magazine as one of the five Gold Awardees. She has a Master’s degree in African American Studies from UCLA, and is originally from Los Angeles, CA.

To learn more about Nikki Henderson or People’s Grocery visit the following website:  http://www.peoplesgrocery.org/index.php?topic=aboutus