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
Treasure
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.
Secretariat
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.
Director
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.
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 MARES 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 MARES Project “Women Saving in Solidarity Networks”, which is implemented in the Mixteca and Central Valleys regions of Oaxaca.
Program and monitoring asistant
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.
coy@puentemexico.org
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@puentemexico.org
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.
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.
Field Technician, MARES Mixteca
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.
Accounting coordination
perla@puentemexico.org
Certified Public Accountant from Oaxaca, graduated from the Universidad Autónoma “Benito Juárez de Oaxaca” in 2010, with a thesis titled “Tax Regime of Authorized Donees,” a topic she continues to apply in her professional practice.
She has over 10 years of experience in both the public and private sectors, specializing in accounting and taxation, including 3 years of experience in U.S. accounting.
She currently works as a private consultant in tax and accounting matters and serves as the Accounting and Administration Coordinator at Puente a la Salud Comunitaria A.C.
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.