Joshua Pettipiece brings lived experience, resilience, and a deep commitment to service as Chair of The JuJu Foundation's Board of Directors. From 2000 to 2008, Joshua faced the harsh realities of homelessness following the loss of his mother and their home. Determined to rebuild, he enrolled in JobTrain in Palo Alto in 2008, where he completed a solar installation program that launched his career in the renewable energy industry. Today, he serves as a site superintendent for a commercial solar company, leading with skill and dedication.

Joshua is also a person in long-term recovery, celebrating over 16 years of sobriety and continuing his healing journey through regular community support meetings. Every Saturday, he partners with the Melino Foundation to organize mutual aid efforts in Newark, CA—distributing meals, hygiene kits, clothing, and spiritual care to unhoused neighbors from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM in the FoodMaxx parking lot.

A fierce advocate for the rights and dignity of those experiencing homelessness, Joshua is a vocal opponent of criminalization policies targeting unhoused communities. His leadership is rooted in compassion, lived experience, and a passion for lifting up those who, like him, have faced tremendous adversity and risen above it.

Learn more about Joshua's advocacy:

• Fremont vote on ordinance banning encampments in public spaces (KTVU)

• Fremont criminalizes aiding the homeless (KTVU)

• Help the Homeless, Go to Jail? (SF Standard)

Sonia Marie Reed is a beacon of resilience and transformation in the East Bay! Once a mother of three navigating the stormy seas of homelessness, substance abuse, and domestic violence, Sonia's journey took a pivotal turn during her time in incarceration, where she found hope and healing. Today, she stands tall as the program manager of the IHOT team at Bonita House, Inc., empowering individuals in recovery with her profound empathy and lived experience.

An advocate for personal growth, Sonia earned her COSER certification from Merritt College and became a certified peer support specialist and registered drug and alcohol specialist through the Brining Institute. Her passion for community shines brightly as the co-founder and Board Chair of East Bay Recovery Community Organization (EBRCO).

Sonia's commitment to service transcends her roles, reflecting a lifelong dedication to uplifting others and fostering meaningful connections. Join her in transforming lives and creating brighter futures!

Michael Garcia-Picazo (he/him) is a dedicated Community Health Worker, Street Medic, and the Executive Director of The JuJu Foundation, a powerful and resilient organization founded in honor of his fiancée, Julia Garcia, to support mental health, healing, and suicide prevention among youth and young adults. A lifelong grassroots organizer with deep roots in the Bay Area, Michael brings years of experience in harm reduction, mental health advocacy, and social justice movements.

His lived experience in recovery deeply informs his work, fueling a passion for breaking down barriers to care and ensuring underserved populations have access to essential resources. At The JuJu Foundation, Michael leads strategic direction, organizational development, and programmatic work centered on equity, compassion, and transformative healing.

In addition to his role at The JuJu Foundation, Michael serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors at the East Bay Recovery Organization (EBRCO) (www.ebrco.net), Treasurer of the Board of Directors at Family Paths (www.familypaths.org), and a Youth Committee Member with Everyone Home, the Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda County Continuum of Care (CoC) (https://everyonehome.org/about/committees/youth-committee/). Across these leadership roles, he works collaboratively to advance community-based solutions that address systemic inequities in healthcare, housing, and behavioral health services.

Through hands-on outreach, overdose prevention, and wraparound case management, Michael works to build healthier, more resilient communities. His personal journey through trauma, healing, and recovery has cemented his commitment to compassionate, community-led responses rooted in equity and lived experience.

Michael is a fierce advocate for equitable healthcare access, crisis response, and dismantling systemic barriers. His leadership and unwavering dedication have earned him numerous recognitions for community service and grassroots organizing. Across all of his work, Michael strives to uplift and empower individuals and families, bridging critical gaps in care, healing, and justice.

Ethos de Leon is a multidimensional healer, visionary organizer, and sacred systems architect committed to collective liberation and radical care. Since initiating their deep healing journey in 2016, Ethos has walked the path of remembrance, unraveling inherited trauma, reweaving ancestral wisdom, and activating embodied service through the intersections of justice, medicine, and spirituality.

They have been engaged in activism since 2009, beginning as a student organizer and cultural worker. From early campaigns for LGBTQ+ equity and racial justice to large-scale movement-building efforts, Ethos has dedicated their life to disrupting systems of harm and tending to collective grief and transformation. During their years in Washington, D.C., they co-created and organized alongside movements for Black liberation, queer and trans justice, immigrant rights, and Indigenous sovereignty. They were elected to the Board of Directors of Catharsis on the Mall and served as Event Operations Director in 2018 and 2019, curating transformational spaces where ritual, art, and activism converge, guided by the ethos that everything is medicine.

As the founder of Age of Aquarius, Ethos designs and facilitates JEDI (Justice, Equity, Divestment, and Intersectionality) experiences that blend somatics, political education, decolonial pedagogy, and ancestral reclamation. Their healing justice work has been shaped by:

• Archaeology of Self with Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Dr. Angel Acosta

• 400 Years of Inequality Facilitator Training (Scholarship recipient)

• Embodied Social Justice Certification (Scholarship recipient) with Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Dr. Sará King, and others

• Communal Consultation on Somatic Abolitionism with Resmaa Menakem (Scholarship recipient)

• Embodied Social Justice Summit (Participant)

They are the author of the senior dissertation "Queer and Soka Pedagogy: Creating Safer Classrooms and Schools," the self-published book "Fuck Your Love & Light," and have served as a panelist with PFLAG’s Speakers Bureau.

Currently, Ethos is pursuing a path in Emergency Medical Services and trauma medicine as a licensed Paramedic. They are pioneering a new model of street medicine, integrating decolonial practice, harm reduction, and trauma-informed care to reimagine what it means to provide emergency healing in a world on fire.

Ethos walks this path for and with the Global Majority, for those erased by empire, for those surviving under the weight of white supremacy, and for those still remembering who they are. Every breath, every offering, and every action is part of their lifelong vow to serve the sacred in all beings, until we are all free.

Ethos de Leon is a visionary organizer, street medic, and sacred systems architect who has been engaged in activism since 2009. From early LGBTQ+ and racial justice organizing to co-creating movement spaces in Washington, D.C., including serving as Operations Director and Board Member of Catharsis on the Mall, Ethos weaves healing and justice through a decolonial, trauma-informed lens.

They are the founder of Age of Aquarius, a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Divestment, and Intersectionality) consulting and ritual education project blending somatics, political education, and spiritual reclamation. A licensed Paramedic, Ethos is pioneering a new model of emergency care rooted in harm reduction, sacred service, and collective liberation.

Their work lives in devotion to the Global Majority, to the sacred in all bodies, and to the remembering of a world where everyone belongs.