Amanda Boyd, Acting Executive Director and Director of Liberatory Education (she/her) amanda@kitesnest.org
Amanda M Boyd is the Director of Liberatory Education at Kite’s Nest. She has spent most of her career serving youth in schools, summer camps, after school programs and youth clubs in New York City, Long Island, and the Capital Region. She comes to Kite’s Nest after almost 7 years supporting the strengthening of access to resources for youth and their families in the South End of Albany through implementation of the Community Schools Strategy. Through her studies and experience in many learning spaces, Amanda has developed a deep interest and desire to explore ways to engage youth in learning rooted in joy, and exploration, while tending to their hearts and hopes. An educator and stationer, Amanda brings with her to Kite’s Nest a love for correspondence through handwritten notes, poetry and making art outdoors. She enjoys spending time in and near the water and sending postcards to loved ones while traveling.
Anna Parisi, Director of Youth Power (she/they) aparisi@kitesnest.org
Anna Parisi is an Afro-Brazilian interdisciplinary artist, curator, writer, and educator whose diverse practice encompasses collage, sculpture, performance, video, and activism. Originally from Brazil, she earned her BA in Communications and Filmmaking from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC Rio) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons, The New School of Design in New York. Anna’s teaching philosophy is rooted in the principles of radical love, encouraging imagination, empowerment, and creativity. Dedicated to advocating for equitable social change through the arts, design, education, and architecture, she has a rich background that includes four years in the exhibition department at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, three years as a Teaching Artist at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and work as a concept planner for brands like Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, Purina, and Natura. Anna’s art investigates themes of systemic racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and racial identity, using her own experiences as a lens. She has exhibited across the U.S., Brazil, Asia, and Europe, focusing on fostering empathy, visibility, and healing. Through dialogue between races and cultures, her work promotes radical empathy and education as tools for societal change, often inviting vulnerability, self-reflection, and engagement. Anna’s practice remains deeply committed to challenging societal boundaries and unraveling complex narratives of identity, culture, and diaspora.
Early Shinada, Development & Grants Manager (they/them) early@kitesnest.org
As our Development & Grants Manager, Early works to grow Kite’s Nest’s capacity to support our youth and educators. Early brings nearly two decades of engagement in social movements to this role, and their approach to fundraising centers relationships, community building, and expanding possibilities for collective liberation. They are also an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work scavenges history to find new futures..
Kaya Weidman, Executive Director (currently out on parental leave) (she/her) kaya@kitesnest.org
Kaya is a co-founder and Executive Director of Kite’s Nest. As an educator at Kite’s Nest, Kaya has taught woodworking for girls, the history of social movements, urban gardening, and digital journalism to children and teens. Kaya began living in Columbia County two decades ago as a land steward and farmer, when she started a collectively-run CSA called Germantown Community Farm on land that is now home to Sweet Freedom Farm. After traveling throughout Mexico and the US teaching about radio production and transmission as a tool for organizing and empowerment, she co-founded the local community radio station, WGXC 90.7-FM, Hands-On Radio in 2008. She served as the station's Director of Community Engagement, and chaired the governing council. Growing up, Kaya was supported to have agency about her own educational path, and she’s passionate about supporting young people to have the power to make choices about where and how they learn. A lifelong self-directed learner, Kaya’s favorite moments involve opportunities to share, learn and build with others.
Samantha Gloffke, Operations Director (she/they) sam@kitesnest.org
Samantha Gloffke is our Operations Director at Kite’s Nest. Her focus is on supporting Kite’s Nest staff and community members by managing behind-the-scenes processes and communications. For many years, Sam honed her operations management skills in the food world; prior to that, she worked as a caretaker for young people, families, and elders. Sam is passionate about tuning in: listening closely for the needs of an individual or group and offering up the reflections, care, and resources that may be needed to support connection, creativity, and visionary action. She loves painting, cooking, carving block prints, working with clay and found treasures, cultivating warm spaces, heart-to-hearts, intergenerational bonding, making and sharing playlists, and written, oral, and visual storytelling. She is deeply invested in the collective work of building joyful, imaginative, abolitionist futures.
Kenn Pan, ReGen Coordinator (they/them) kenn@kitesnest.org
Kenn Pan is the ReGen Coordinator supporting the ReGen Teens program with the regenerative and ecological work of land stewardship and environmental justice in caring for the community garden, compost initiative and site restoration. Holding the core values of food sovereignty, access and justice for the program, they aim to interweave the ReGen program with the local community and empower the teens through entrepreneurship and education based in foodways, craft and plant medicine. Kenn is a practicing textile and fiber artist grounded in the research of ancestral methodologies of material culture, craft and agriculture. They come from living in New York City working in the fashion industry and the urban farm and garden space, collaborating with Oko Farms to develop a natural fiber and dye project and community programming. In the last year Kenn has been engaging in collaborations with upstate New York regional farms, Star Route Farm and Gentle Time Farm, to cultivate fiber and dye crops, sharing and adapting seeds, and foster community fiber processing and craft circles. Kenn is inspired working with youth and in community to forge and nurture connections between land, material and spirit.
Zebi Williams, Capacity Building Consultant (she/her) zebi@kitesnest.org
At the age of eighteen, Zebi founded the Lil Ragamuffin Summer Camp in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica where she grew up. The camp grew to be recognized as one of the top arts programs in the country. Zebi has also worked as a community organizer in a range of contexts, advocating for young people to be agents of change in the development of their communities. She is a founding member of the Sista-2-Sista Youth Summit, an annual event built to empower and connect young women of Pan-African descent in Brooklyn, Jamaica, and Ghana. And she has worked with public housing residents and small businesses in the Lower East Side to organize against gentrification. Zebi’s education methodology emphasizes teaching to different learning styles, creating platforms for both indigenous and western based knowledge systems, celebrating teachable moments, redesigning community approaches to conflict resolution, and promoting community rituals to help ground children in local stewardship at every age. A lifelong learner, Zebi’s skills and interests are truly wide-ranging. She has a degree in Applied Anthropology, holds a certificate in UX Design and Design Thinking Methodologies, and recently won her first hackathon. Coming from a family of artists, Zebi’s own art includes poetry, fashion/jewelry design, filmmaking, graphic design and interactive data art. Zebi is also the mother of a Kite’s Nest alum, Zia!
Nicole Letelier, Admin & Communications Coordinator (she/her) nicole@kitesnest.org
Nicole M. Letelier is the Admin and Communications Coordinator at Kite's Nest. A self proclaimed lover of systems and processes, Nicole brings to Kite's Nest a passion for supporting organizations to function in a manner that allows both its employees and the communities it serves, to feel supported and able to thrive. Much of Nicole's career has been spent working with or launching new initiatives for social impact organizations that center the needs and dreams of BIPOC youth and their families. Most recently she has been working with K-8 schools to launch their relational fundraising initiatives. Outside of her work at Kite's Nest ,Nicole enjoys homeschooling her two kiddos, further developing her knowledge of plant-based healing, and planning her family's next worldschooling adventure.