Feeding Laramie Valley Team Members
Gayle Woodsum is an award winning writer and speaker with over 35 years of experience in community organizing for social change throughout the United States and in Canada. She is president and chief executive officer of Action Resources International (ARI), a Wyoming based nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence and promoting safety through a variety of community strengthening efforts that are community based, designed and led. In 2009, Gayle launched the Feeding Laramie Valley project through ARI, in an effort to expand resources and create equitable collaborations among various community food, health and social justice programs. A staunch promoter of the need for leadership based in experiential knowledge, she helped create and fulfills the role of community liaison as a passionate advocate for the community based partners of the Food Dignity Action Research Project.
Lina Dunning is part of the year-round staff at Feeding Laramie Valley. She manages several different projects as well as documenting the area’s food history and future through interviews and videos. She grew up in the United States in a small town on the coast of Maine. After graduating from the University of Maine with a master’s degree in Community Development she worked as a community educator with the Cooperative Extension Service. Her experiences there led her to focus on the urgent issues facing women and children including family planning and sexual violence. Now living in Wyoming, surrounded by mountains instead of the ocean, she is working as a community-based social change activist to understand the role that food insecurity plays in keeping women trapped in abusive relationships and how to make healthy, fresh food available to those in need. In 2017, Lina became director of a statewide AmeriCorps VISTA Intermediary Program, also under the sponsorship of Action Resources International.
Reece Owens was born in Laramie, Wyoming, and grew up in the mountains at over 8,000 feet above sea level, 40 miles from the nearest town, in what most would think of as a cabin in the woods. After graduating from Laramie High School, he attended the University of Wyoming where he received a Bachelors Degree in Religious Studies. Reece began working at Feeding Laramie Valley as a researcher and animator for the Food Dignity project, while still attending college, and continued since graduation. At Feeding Laramie Valley, he is now the Food Production Coordinator.