Meet Our Team
Staff Members
Lydia Koltai (she/her) is the youth educator and community engagement manager for Southside Community Farm. Lydia is a mother, gardener, herbalist, and educator with many years of experience teaching children about gardening.
Jacque Harbison (she/her) works as food program support for Southside Community Farm and collaborates with Lydia Koltai in leading the farm’s Grow Your Own garden program. Jacque is a mother, grandmother, and a proud resident of the Southside neighborhood.
Chloe Moore (he/she) serves SCF as farm manager, where she grows and distributes healthy food and leads events such as BIPOC-only garden days. Chloe strives to reconnect people of color with land and food in ways that feel empowering, restorative, and delightful. He is a queer, Black and Borikua-Taino, land steward, educator, and parent who loves to eat good food, sing to plants, and play in the dirt. Chloe is also a co-creator of Liberation Tools.
Anna Tibbetts (they/she) is thrilled to join the Southside team as financial administrator and funding director. They are passionate about co-creating and protecting community spaces where folks are inspired to explore storytelling, artistry, collaboration, and healing, from a decolonized and intersectional lens. She is a visionary who believes in staying curious and open-hearted, especially in the practice of simultaneously holding grief and enchantment with the world.
Kate Wheeler (they/them) is farm administrator for the Southside Community Farm and program manager for the Feed AVL Veggie Box program. They are a queer urban farmer who has lived in Asheville for 14 years. They are anti-diet, anti-racist, and pro food-access. Their passion for farming is based in collaboration, reciprocity, and mutual aid.
Leadership Team
Shuvonda Harper (she/her) is a native of Southside and a co-founder of SCF. Growing up here, Shuvonda developed a deep love for her community. Living away from Asheville for a number of years led her to realize that working in her home community is her calling. She is now a well-respected activist, and serves as the chair of the Southside United Neighborhood Association. Shuvonda is a mother and a vocal advocate for the farm and for her community.
Ember Phoenix (they/she) is an herbalist, teacher, and healer. They support SCF by teaching classes on herbal medicine as well as by steering the farm purposefully along a path of collective liberation. Passionate about the healing work they do, Ember enjoys watching others find the lights within themselves. By honoring the Indigenous and African practices of their ancestors, Ember is able to weave ceremonial healing into their community care rituals. They have found their purpose this lifetime fighting for a reality where people can exist and thrive together, co-creating community care systems that reflect and embody an abolitionist and decolonial framework.
Musa Fardan (he/him) co-founded Southside Community Farm in 2014 with other Southside residents as a way to bring healthy food access to the neighborhood. He is a long-time Southside resident.
Marie Cayabyab (she/her) is a board member who volunteered at Southside Community Farm while residing in the neighborhood. The farm has been a place of healing and has deeply impacted both Marie and the communities she is part of. A civil engineer, community organizer, and volunteer for various local organizations, she currently serves as SCF board treasurer.
Our Board of Directors currently includes Shuvonda Harper, Musa Fardan, Tikisha Mwetta (not pictured) and Marie Cayabyab.
