OUR MISSION
Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Bridge to Community Health) contributes to food sovereignty and to improving the health and economic well-being of rural communities in Mexico.
Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Bridge to Community Health) contributes to food sovereignty and to improving the health and economic well-being of rural communities in Mexico.
We envision a world where families and communities live with dignity and exercise their food sovereignty by growing, consuming, exchanging, and marketing locally-produced healthy food using sustainable agroecological methods.
Dignity, Equity, Integrity, Respect, Responsibility, Solidarity, Transparency, Innovation
Co-Founder.
Co-Founder Katherine Lorenz is Chair of the Board of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation (www.cgmf.org), a grantmaking foundation focusing on environmental sustainability in Texas, and Senior Advisor at the National Center for Family Philanthropy (www.ncfp.org).
Co-Founder.
Katherine Lorenz is Chair of the Board of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation (www.cgmf.org), a grantmaking foundation focusing on environmental sustainability in Texas, and Senior Advisor at the National Center for Family Philanthropy (www.ncfp.org).
She is the Leader of the Next Gen of the Giving Pledge, and Forbes named Ms. Lorenz “Ones to Watch,” an up-and-coming face in philanthropy in 2012. Previously, she served as Deputy Director for the Institute for Philanthropy (www.instituteforphilanthropy.org), whose mission is to increase effective philanthropy in the UK and internationally.
Prior to that, Ms. Lorenz lived in Oaxaca, Mexico for nearly six years where she co-founded Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (www.puentemexico.org), a non-profit organization working to advance food sovereignty in rural Oaxaca through the integration of amaranth into the diet. She continues to be involved with Puente’s work as an active board member. Before founding Puente, she spent two summers living in rural villages in Latin America with the volunteer program Amigos de las Américas and later served on their Program Committee and as a trustee of the Foundation for Amigos de las Americas.
Additionally, she currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the Environmental Defense Fund, The Philanthropy Workshop (Vice-Chair), and the Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science, and formerly was a Fellow and later Board Chair at the National Center for Family Philanthropy, a Board Member of Exponent Philanthropy, Resource Generation, the Amaranth Institute, and a member of the National Academies’ Roundtable of Science and Technology for Sustainability.
Ms. Lorenz is a member of the Global Philanthropists Circle of the Synergos Institute and serves on the Leadership Council of the Greater Houston Community Foundation and the national advisory committee of USC’s Irene Hirano Inouye Philanthropic Leadership Fund. Ms. Lorenz holds a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Davidson College.
Co-Founder.
Kate Seely is the Senior Director of Leadership, Culture and Community at Northern California Grantmakers. In this role, she directs NCG’s professional and leadership development work, and guides our focus on organizational culture as a leverage point for impact.
Co-Founder.
Kate Seely is the Senior Director of Leadership, Culture and Community at Northern California Grantmakers. In this role, she directs NCG’s professional and leadership development work, and guides our focus on organizational culture as a leverage point for impact.
Before working in philanthropy, Kate co-founded the nonprofit Puente a la Salud Comunitaria in Oaxaca, Mexico, a community development organization focused on public health, economic development, and sustainable agriculture. She is currently a proud board member there, and serves on the board of her amazing summer camp, the Bar 717 Ranch, and the nonprofit NewStories.
She spent a transformative year completing a Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, where she deepened her own understanding of the type of leadership and organizational culture that is needed to achieve both environmental and social sustainability. In her life beyond work, she loves farms, farmers, cooking, eating, canning, community, nature, hiking and backpacking, and her four year old niece, who consistently reminds her to be present in the current moment.
Puente USA Council Member.
Hope is an International Affairs Advisor in the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Puente USA Council Member.
Hope is an International Affairs Advisor in the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). She is a Climate-Smart Policy Advisor supporting the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) initiative to address climate change and world hunger, as well as food systems innovation.
She has served as a sustainable agriculture and climate change expert in the Climate Change Division at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as an International Trade Specialist in the Foreign Agricultural Service at the USDA. She is a Research Fellow in the Ethics and Animal Law Program at Yale Law School. She currently serves on the Puente USA Advisory Board.
President Gabriel Garcia, MD is the William and Dorothy Kaye University Fellow in Undergraduate Education and Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, at Stanford University.
President Gabriel Garcia, MD is the William and Dorothy Kaye University Fellow in Undergraduate Education and Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, at Stanford University. During his more than four decades at the University, he held positions as director of the University’s Haas Center for Public Service and Associate Dean of Admissions at the School of Medicine.
He grew up in Puerto Rico in an immigrant family from Cuba, studied medicine at New York University, and did his residency in internal medicine and a specialty in gastroenterology and hepatology at Stanford.
He served as a physician in the liver transplant program and as a clinical researcher on liver disease. He taught 5 undergraduate courses at Stanford: two classes on community health fundamentals in the communities near the university, a class on health and wellness in agricultural communities in the central valley of California, a class on health and wellness in the communities of the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, and since 2007 a class on health and well-being in Mexican immigrants based in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Lastly, he served as a faculty advisor to the LGBT Medical Education Research Group.
Vice-President Aerin is a writer, upcycling artist, urban gardener, and yoga instructor. She is an independent consultant using Art of Hosting and other participative approaches as a basis for her work with organizations.
Vice-President Aerin is a writer, upcycling artist, urban gardener, and yoga instructor. She is an independent consultant using Art of Hosting and other participative approaches as a basis for her work with organizations.
She is also a graphic facilitator and recorder for gatherings of all sizes. She loves to draw, dance and create. Since moving to Mexico in 2009 she has been working with organizations, networks, and individuals to facilitate dialogue and create the conditions for authentic collaboration and participatory leadership.
As the Senior Director of Learning and Care Redesign, April Watson provides the strategic leadership, management and overall direction for the Care Redesign portfolio of work at Pacific Business Group on Health.
As the Senior Director of Learning and Care Redesign, April Watson provides the strategic leadership, management and overall direction for the Care Redesign portfolio of work at Pacific Business Group on Health.
She is passionate about values-driven work that supports transformational change to improve health, and has a blend of experience in hospital and clinic operations, public health, academia, grant-making, community health programming and global health.
Prior to joining PBGH, April led a medical innovations grant-making program for Stanford University’s School of Medicine. She spent seven years working for Sequoia Hospital, part of Dignity Health, and led identification, design and implementation of process redesign efforts across the hospital for improved quality and financial sustainability. She also worked for Palo Alto Medical Foundation facilitating complex improvement projects involving clinic operations and physician leaders.
Earlier in her career, April spent six years working in international development for Freedom from Hunger, including a year and a half based in Oaxaca, Mexico. April earned her Master’s degree in Public Health from U.C. Berkeley and is a Registered Dietitian.
Director of the Alliance Puente-SiKanda
josecarlos@puentemexico.org
Jose Carlos was born in Oaxaca, Mexico. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from El Colegio de Mexico and a Master`s degree in International Cooperation and Development from the University of Pavia, Italy, as well as diplomas in Strategic Planning from the Institute of Cultural Affairs (London, UK), Human Rights (Viadrina University Frankfurt, Germany) and undergraduate studies at the Institute of Political Studies, Sc-Po, Paris.
Jose Carlos has 18 years of experience working with different non-governmental organizations in Asia, Africa Latin America and Europe implementing and designing projects in the field of poverty-reduction; conflict transformation; human rights and sustainable development.
In 2009, he returned to Oaxaca where he has been director and co-founder of SiKanda, a non-profit organization that works with highly marginalized communities, particular with slum dwellers and informal waste pickers in Oaxaca.
Previous to the alliance, Jose Carlos served for six years on the Puente Board of Directors.
Coordinator of FUERTE Project
araceli@puentemexico.org
Graduated in Public Accounting and Master’s in Cultural Management. She has more than 20 years of experience in Civil Society organizations, on issues of Community Development, Health, Human Rights and Collective Rights.
She currently coordinates the FUERTE Project “Strength, Unity, Empowerment and Resilience for Women in Extreme Poverty”, which is implemented in the Mixteca and Central Valleys regions of Oaxaca.
Administrative Assistant
asistencia@puentemexico.org
Selene has participated with Puente since 2019, first as a social service intern where she carried out the logistics for the summer nutrition programs, monitoring activities in the communities of the Etla Valley and Mixteca region. She supported the Development and Communication team in the design, logistics, and written memory of Amaranth Day that same year.
In March 2021, she joined as a volunteer to support the administrative area and since May she joined as the team’s administrative assistant. She graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in Social Work and, although her journey through the classrooms was oriented towards the provision of community mental health and the prison environment, life led her to meet the work of society civil, which has her fascinated and convicted of its importance in contributing to the well-being of society. She likes to learn for her growth and for her professional development.
She firmly believes that solidarity can generate an abundance of fruits, often unexpected.
Field Technician, MARES Central Valleys.
She has been a popular educator for 20 years, her career has been in civil society projects. She studied at the National Methodological School at IMDEC, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and is a certified Affective Nutrition facilitator by the Kellogg Foundation, accompanying women who, in an organized way, transform their lives with discipline, principles, values, and methodological tools that bring about important human and financial changes.
She currently collaborates with Puente as a Field Technician on the MARES project in the Central Valleys region, particularly in Zaachila Oriente. Adriana Cointa loves nature and hiking.
Field Technician, MARES Mixteca
Araceli Sagrario López López, originally from Santa María Yucuhiti, graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Administration from the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca in 2021. She has experience as an educational promoter at CONAFE, where she managed and developed strategies for teamwork and leadership.
She currently collaborates with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria as a Field Technician for the MARES project in the municipality of Yucuhiti.
Social Economy & Social Solidarity
aracely@puentemexico.org
Aracely is originally from the municipality of San Cristóbal Amoltepec, belonging to the community of Tierra Blanca, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca. She is the mother of 4 wonderful children for whom she learned and took on various work to support her family and her community. She has served in community positions such as managing the community kitchen, working in the adult education program as an out-of-school initial education instructor, and serving as a rural assistant and treasurer of her community’s municipal agency, always showing willingness to learn and support community work.
Ten years ago, she first began working with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria and supported the implementation of nutrition workshops in her municipality, and later joined the team as a community promoter in the Mixteca region. She has been actively involved in different actions that the organization promotes, such as the agroecological production of amaranth and vegetables, healthy nutrition, as well as in social economy activities, always thinking about the common good.
Aracely wants her participation as part of the Puente work team to translate into actions that improve community work and the self-organization of groups and communities.
Coordinación de contabilidad
araceli@puentemexico.org
She holds a degree in Public Accounting and a Master’s degree in Cultural Management. She has over 20 years of experience in civil society organizations, focusing on community development, health, human rights, and collective rights. She currently coordinates the FUERTE Project “Strength, Unity, Empowerment, and Resilience for Women in Extreme Poverty,” which is implemented in the Mixteca and Central Valleys regions of Oaxaca.
Communications Specialist
info@puentemexico.org
With a degree in Communication Sciences and Techniques from the University of Veracruz, she has over eight years of experience managing communications for civil society organizations and international foundations. She has collaborated with various local media outlets such as TV Azteca Oaxaca and NSS Noticias as a reporter and content editor. Since 2022, she has collaborated with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria and SiKanda as a communications specialist.