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KeYnote Speaker
Erika Allen
Erika Allen currently serves as the Founding CEO of Urban Growers Collective, the President of Green ERA Educational NFP, and is the Co-Founder of Green Era Sustainability Partners.
For 16 years (2002 to 2018), Erika founded and directed Growing Power’s Chicago and National Programs, where she championed the eradication of environmental injustice and the promotion of regenerative, urban agriculture. Her career is dedicated to public service, developing sustainable community food systems, and addressing structural racism.
Ms. Allen's commitment to public service includes serving as a Chicago Park District Commissioner (2012–2018). She is a Co-Founder of the Chicago Food Policy Action Council, and holds board and advisory roles with organizations such as Grow Greater Englewood, Growing Home, the Community Food Navigator project, and the Growing Justice Fund.
Erika has been recognized at the state and federal levels, including an appointment by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to the Illinois Leadership Council for Agricultural Education (ICAE) (2022–2024), and selection by the Biden Administration to the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Committee for Illinois, 2022-2025. She also delivered the TEDxChicago talk, "Environmental Alchemy for Sustainable Food Systems,” in September 2024.
Her recent accolades for 2025 highlight her significant impact, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Chicago Council on Science and Technology and the Authentic Advocate Climate Action Hero Award from the Climate Action Museum.
Invited speakers
Shani Fletcher
Shani Fletcher grew up in Southern California, central Massachusetts, and rural Michigan. Upon earning her BA in Anthropology at Wellesley College, she pursued a career path that included bookselling, conference organizing, youth work, grant writing, and urban farming. A through-line in her professional life has been a commitment to the social justice community of Eastern Massachusetts. She spent ten years in the youth development field. She then realized that her dual passions for social justice and gardening could be combined through a career in food justice. She became an urban farmer at ReVision Urban Farm in Dorchester where she worked for 6 seasons, serving first as the Grower and then as the Farm Manager. After receiving her Master of Public Policy degree in Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning in 2018, she began working at the City of Boston as the Grassroots Program Manager, through which she helped community groups gain access to City land and federal money to start community gardens, urban farms, and other open spaces. She now serves as the Director of GrowBoston, Boston’s first Office of Urban Agriculture. She has done a diverse range of volunteer work over the years, and her personal interests include cooking, travel, karaoke, and the liberation of all people from oppression.