Anna Jepson is an art director, writer, designer, photographer, recipe developer and all-around multi-hyphenate. She’s spent the last decade building a career in the food, beauty, and retail industries, but has found her creative home in fashion. She started her own blog about her adventures in cooking, community, and savoring the slow moments called The Féministe – whose mission is to spur us on towards unity, understanding and acceptance through recipes and authentic conversations. She has worked for some of the world’s biggest brands in beauty and apparel, including Sephora. She currently works as Art Director for Old Navy and Gap. New to New York City, she plans to take the next step of her creative calling through the pursuit of filmmaking. 

Lauren speaks with health coach, plant-based chef, architect, digital designer, and new mama, Sanza Monleon, on what it means to build a world for future generations.

Sanza is also the founder of the digital magazine the-eosia.com, and creator of The eosia Lifestyle, a digital magazine that helps busy women to improve their health and wellbeing while taking care of the planet.

In this episode, Lauren speaks with writer Elizabeth Moore about how she pursued her dreams, dwells in what she has created, and her creative process of listening and dictating.

Elizabeth is a graduate of Mississippi College and the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford University. Prior to her time at Oxford, she worked as a writing consultant, content manager, and virtual assistant to authors. She now works for Penguin Random House as a Publishing Associate for Vintage & Anchor Books. Elizabeth’s forthcoming book Liturgies for Hope (Waterbrook), co-authored with Audrey Elledge, will be published on November 1, 2022. Follow her writing at elizabethmoorewriting.com or on Instagram at @elizabethjmoore.

A mid-season check-in with our co-hosts Lauren Franco and Noelle Boyd where we talk about where we are as individuals and an organization.

A believer in turning dreams into realities, and a lover of all things good - Zipporah is a native of Northern Virginia and a recent graduate of Hampton University with a B.S. in Business Management. With her coexisting passions of being her own boss, uplifting women and girls, and sharing her passionate love for Christ, in 2018, Zipporah founded the nonprofit organization of Everyday Esther - an organization dedicated to the core pillars of education, service and sisterhood, and building partnerships with organizations in the Greater DC and Virginia community. 

 Today, she remains the Chief Executive Officer of Everyday Esther, and has also recently relocated to Dallas-Fort Worth, TX where she now also serves as a Community Specialist at Chirstian Vision - a non-profit ministry dedicated to globally reaching communities for Christ through optimized social media advertising, digital pioneering, and effective Gospel content creation. Zipporah is deeply passionate about youth, community development, marketing, non profit operations and faith-based leadership.

In this episode, Ha-Young and Noelle chat with Dr. Mary Cazabón about the ways in which language, verbal or otherwise, forms the way we see ourselves in our communities and in the world.

Dr. Mary Cazabón, Ed.D. is the Assistant Director of the Brockton School Community Engagement Project in Lesley University and a former professor of University of Massachusetts Boston of Applied Linguistics. She was also the former Director for Bilingual/ESL programs at Cambridge Public Schools for K-12 grades from 1994-2008, where she rendered technical services to dual and foreign language programs and instructional programs for ELLs as well as evaluations through her work from 2008 to present at WestEd. She has extensive experience in conducting research and evaluation, and in delivering technical assistance to schools, districts, universities, and state departments of education.

Kat Harris is the host of The Refined Collective Podcast, author of Sexless in the City, and Founder of the online publication The Refined Woman. She has also been a full-time photographer for over a decade with her work featured in: The New York Times, WWD, Vanity Fair, GQ, Forbes, People, Who What Wear, US Weekly, Glamour UK and more. In everything she does, her goal is to create a safe space to have honest and layered conversations around faith, sexuality, relationships, culture, identity, and everything in-between.

A passionate advocate with a demonstrated history of working in the fields of Human Rights, Gender Equity, and Immigration Law, Haddy Gassama is currently the National Director of Policy and Advocacy at UndocuBlack Network - a multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people that fosters community, facilitates access to resources, and contributes to transforming the realities of those in the black community in order to thrive and lead fulfilling lives.

Becoming licensed to practice law in Washington D.C., she has since worked with organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Washington College of Law International Human Rights Clinic, and represented survivors of torture from sub-Saharan African countries in their asylum proceedings. 

In this episode, Noelle chats with Haddy about her work as a lawyer and advocate in building a more just world.

You can find more of Haddy's writing here, and UndcouBlack statement on termination of Title 42 here.

Nathalie is a co-founder of Hearth Display and product builder passionate about design and technology. She’s led product design for B2C fintech and two-sided marketplace products and led design for global construction teams. Nathalie holds her Master’s in Architecture and Design and is an expert in design thinking, UI/UX, product strategy, and project management. As a first generation immigrant, Nathalie understands the desire to belong and the importance of building a solid foundation from scratch - in both her community and career.

Ale Siekmeier is a life coach, relational health expert, and founder of multiple businesses, including Between A+B, a relationship coaching business that she runs with her husband, Ben as well as her most recent endeavor, The Nett, a boutique match-making business based out of New York City. Ale is also a teacher, leading a course throughout the year called the Healthy Soul course, and she travels to speak, teach, and coach throughout the country. 

But for Ale, much of her current endeavors came from what she experienced growing up, having struggled for many years with trauma-induced shame and self-hatred, and eventually finding breakthrough. In this first episode of Season 3 of the podcast, we speak to Ale about how she has been able to lay a healthy foundation in both her personal and professional lives.

In our last episode of the season, Lauren and Morgan chat with Dr. Nancy Jernigan about how to manage interpersonal expectation, and the importance of maintaining personal mental health in order to foster healthy leadership and relationships. Nancy is a recognized ministry leader and teacher, passionate about developing and multiplying leaders. She holds multiple degrees and certifications - from her Master of Arts in Ministry to her PhD in pastoral ministry with an emphasis in leadership Leadership. Nancy serves alongside her husband Jeff as the President of the Hidden Value Group focusing on education and humanitarian aid around the world. Bringing healing, health and hope to organizations and schools. As a lead consultant in the non-profit and higher educational industries, Nancy works with Stanton Chase Los Angeles serving clients in Orange County, CA and Los Angeles. Nancy also serves as a leadership expert with an emphasis on mental health and beating stress and burnout for WELCOA. (Wellness Council of America) as well as a member of the AAS Taskforce for Improving Mental Health Access to Resources for Veterans. 

This week, Carin and Noelle chat with Farah and Amelia, about health and solidarity in the Asian-American community. Farah and Amelia are co-directors of Ingrained NY, a video portraiture series dedicated to amplifying intersectional, diverse, and often overlooked voices and stories of New York’s Asian diaspora. Amelia is a freelance documentary filmmaker and producer who has worked on projects like Netflix’s Amend: The Fight for America and Quibi’s Nightgowns with Sasha Velour. A Chinese-Malaysian, Amelia is proud to call both Malaysia, where she was born and raised, and New York, where she has been living for the past six years, her home. Farah Jabir is a director, writer and producer based in New York and Kuala Lumpur. She is a fellow at Mentorship Matters and most recently her feature pitch Tigers Don’t Sleep was selected as a finalist at IMPACT X Netflix. She is in pre-production for her short film Kokomo, shooting later this summer. Her work places a heavy focus on empathy and intimacy.

Noelle joins Lauren in this episode to chat with Elom Fiawoo about building and sustaining relationships and the importance that community serves in each of our lives. A native-born Ghanaian, Elom moved to the UK at the age of 12 and lived there for 13 years before returning back to Accra, the capital city of Ghana and her place of origin. Today, she has founded and runs a women’s-focused, faith-led community that is mostly based in Accra, named Heart to Heart, which exists to encourage vulnerability, transparency and friendship as a way of life for the women around them. Their goal is to leave behind pretense, let go of unhealthy expectations, take off any masks that might be worn and anything that bars one another from connecting with what matters the most: God and His people.

As we move into our topic of relational health, our Global Leadership Director right here at [gather], Noelle Boyd, comes to share with us her love for people and her experiences navigating community and relationship-building across continents. Noelle is a recent alumna from New York University, having completed her BA in Anthropology and minor studies in Global Public Health. She currently holds the titles of Communications Coordinator at Jerusalem Peacebuilders - a nonprofit dedicated to peace-building that crosses cultures and faiths both in the US and in the Middle East. Throughout her early career, Noelle has cultivated a diversity of experiences in areas from team leadership and development, event and program coordinating, non-profit capacity building, public speaking, dialogue facilitation, as well as social science and public health research. Her current professional interests include exploring innovative sustainable development efforts and overlaps between both the sub-Saharan West African and black American contexts, as part of the global black Diaspora, through public health, social justice, advocacy, and environment. 

​This week, we chat with sleep consultant Jess Hudson on the topics of sleep guilt and setting healthy sleeping habits that work for you. Jessica Hudson is a certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant at SleepShop with a passion for helping families create a happy & healthy home through sleep. As the mom of three children, Jessica quickly learned the importance of good sleep for the health of her babies, her own health and her marriage. They all thrive when everyone is well rested. A researcher at heart, thanks to a journalism background, she immersed herself in studying health and wellness. Over the years she’s learned even more about the value of sleep on health, as well as other tips and tricks for staying healthy as a busy mom, using nutrition to increase milk supply, and helping moms get the energy they all need to survive life with little ones.

At 19, Vanessa Jones was diagnosed with lymphoma. After two years of radiation and chemotherapy, Vanessa returned to school and shortly after was officially declared to be in remission. She graduated in 2018 with a degree in Public Health, of which was inspired by a newfound desire to learn more about health in light of her experience with cancer. She is now an Administrative Assistant at Stevens Early Learning Center in the DC Public school system (DCPS). In her current position at DCPS, she is still applying her Public Health studies in gauging and catering to the needs of students and their families within the community. In addition to her administrative duties, Vanessa serves as the Administrator of Medication (ALM) for the school’s health center, and as the Homeless Student Liaison identifying students in need and providing them with backpacks, Metro passes, and additional resources. 

Lauren speaks with long-time friend and private chef, Rachel Snyder, about her relationship with food and personal battle with disordered eating. Rachel shares her journey of learning how to enjoy the moment and be present in relationships at the table. Rachel began her career in PR, but a few years ago, decided to take a step of faith in launching her own business as a private chef. Now, she is the owner and chef of Rachel Snyder Hospitality, and loves to host pop-up dinners all over NYC to create connections and relationships between people in a crazy, busy city where that can sometimes be so hard. In addition to her curated pop-up dinners, Rachel also specializes in private, in-home dinner parties and artistic grazing tables. In her previous career, Rachel spent years counseling restaurants and chefs as a publicist, securing stories and recipes in The New York Times, New York Magazine, WSJ and more.

Our conversation this week was with Megan Hoffman about body image, journey-oriented change, and touches on the topics of agency, accountability, and the importance of community. Megan was a contestant on USA’s Biggest Loser, and was the at-home winner of the show's reboot season in 2020. Megan is currently a model, keynote motivational speaker, and author who primarily focuses on personal development, health & wellness, and body positivity. She has been a leader in the fitness industry for over a decade and after overcoming her own weight-loss battle has made it her life’s passion to help others break free from self-imposed limitations. Megan is currently pursuing her dreams working on a motivational book called “Worthy” and exploring fiction options as well.

This week, Lauren and Morgan chat with Rhiannon Bell about healing from personal and collective experiences of trauma. Rhiannon (Rhia) is the Global Director of Aftercare at A21, a global 501c3 NPO that helps fight against human trafficking. As Director of Aftercare, she oversees the aftercare of survivors of human trafficking who enter the A21 program in Greece, Bulgaria, Ukraine, South Africa, Thailand, Cambodia, and the U.S. Previously, Rhia was a clinical psychologist for 9 years at the Psychology Cafe Clinic located in Australia, where Rhia grew up. As a clinical psychologist, Rhia was excited about her opportunity to join A21 as she felt it combined her passion for justice, purpose, and professional skills.

This week, Lauren and Morgan sat down to chat about mindfulness and meditation with Yael Shy. Yael is the CEO of Mindfulness Consulting and an adjunct professor at New York University. Previously, Yael was Senior Director at NYU Global Spiritual Life and Of Many Institute for Multifaith Leadership. She was also the founder and director of MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the United States. Yael authored an award-winning book, What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond. She has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS News, and Fox 5 News, as well as in Time Magazine, Real Simple and the Harvard Business Review. Yael has over a decade of teaching and consulting experience and nearly 20 years of meditation practice experience in Zen, Jewish, and secular contexts. Yael is also a contributor to the Ten Percent Happier mindfulness app.