About

About Youth Forward

Youth Forward is a new and growing organization dedicated to supporting disadvantaged youth and youth of color through education and community action. While the organization is currently focused on the impact of marijuana legalization on children and families, Youth Forward intends to address other issues affecting vulnerable youth as the organization grows. In addition to its own policy work, Youth Forward assists other organizations with strategic support in the areas of youth organizing, policy research, and organizational development. Youth Forward is committed to supporting youth voice and youth/adult partnerships and as such, is in the process of creating a board of directors in which half of board members are young people and young adults. Stay tuned!

Board of Directors
President: LaCresia Hawkins
Treasurer: Fernando Cibrian
Secretary: Amy Fitzgerald
Member: Tia Elena Martinez
Member: Carmen Medrano

Staff
Jim Keddy, Executive Director
Nia MooreWeathers, Community Organizer

LaCresia Hawkins | President

LaCresia Hawkins is a Central Valley native. She has spent most of her adult life advocating for equity in the area of public health. She is currently a foster parent and is working to improve student health in low performing school districts. Over the years, she has played leadership roles in various organizations, including the statewide community organizing network, PICO California.

Fernando Cibrian | Treasurer

Since 2012, Fernando Cibrian oversees community organizing, community building and leadership development for Mutual Housing California families. He has 18 years experience as a community organizer in the PICO National Network and PICO California, which focused on leadership development and community empowerment through policy campaigns targeted at improving conditions for lower and moderate income families. At PICO he supported the network’s civic engagement and immigration reform efforts. He is currently a board member of Sacramento Area Congregations Together and is a former board member of the Santa Ana Federal Empowerment Zone Board that worked to foster economic opportunities for Santa Ana’s designated federal empowerment zone. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the California State University, Pomona.

Amy Fitzgerald | Secretary

Amy Fitzgerald is a Senior Program Officer at the East Bay Community Foundation. In that role, she supports organizations that amplify community voice and exercise grassroots power to build a Just East Bay. A Bay Area native, Amy worked for 12 years as a community organizer and Executive Director of Oakland Community Organizations (OCO), the largest grassroots organizing network in Oakland. Through her work, Amy manifests her passion for community-led, equitable systems change, faith active in the public sphere, and powerful multicultural coalitions.

Amy received her Masters of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science from Santa Clara University. Amy is bi-lingual and served with Jesuit Volunteers International in Managua, Nicaragua. She lives in Oakland with her wife, and can often be found cheering for the Golden State Warriors.
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Carmen Medrano | Member

Carmen Medrano was born in Mexico and came to the United States at the age of 4. Carmen graduated from the University of Denver with a B.A. in Psychology. She has been working as a faith-based community organizer with the PICO Network since 2008 and held leadership roles at local, statewide, and national levels. In the fall of 2014, she brought her expertise and passion for social change to the Central Valley, and helped in the creation of a new regional organization, Faith in the Valley. Currently with her role as Regional Organizer she aspires to empower people of faith and families to address racial and economic equity.

Tia Elena Martinez | Member

Tia Elena Martinez has over 25 years of experience doing social change work in low income communities and communities of color in the United States. Over the decades her work has spanned a wide range of issues including education reform, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, homelessness, affordable housing,
disconnected youth, and immigration. She is currently an independent consultant doing work on dismantling the school to prison pipeline and transforming life chances for boys and men of color. Prior to consulting, she was the Chief Equity Officer at the Stupski Foundation where she designed a R and D effort focused on applying knowledge from the psychology and neuroscience to help low income students and student of color own and drive their learning and increase academic achievement.

Tia came to the foundation from the Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at UC Berkeley Law School, where she was acting director of education,
leading a policy unit focused on issues related to education reform, teacher effectiveness, and racial justice. Prior to joining the Warren Institute, she served as strategic consultant to the Office for Civil Rights in the US Department of Education leading their strategic planning process and supporting rollout and implementation of the new strategy across 12 regional offices. Prior to working with the department, Tia was a senior manager with the Bridgespan Group where she led engagements with large, national foundations and major civil rights groups. She’s also been a senior fellow at the Hewlett Foundation, a policy analyst for the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the San Francisco Mayor's HIV Health Services Planning Council, and a street outreach worker. Tia has an AB in History from Harvard University, a Master in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Jim Keddy | Executive Director

Jim Keddy is the executive director of Youth Forward and a consultant to social change organizations. For thirty years Jim has served as a leader in social change efforts in California. He is the former director of PICO California, a statewide association of community organizing efforts, and served as a vice president at The California Endowment, one of the state’s largest charitable foundations. While at The Endowment, he played a primary role in developing the foundation’s youth organizing strategy. He began his work in promoting racial and social justice as a high school and college activist and entered the community organizing field in his early 20’s. He has been a member of several non-profit boards including the boards of The California Endowment, Public Health Advocates and the California Budget and Policy Center. He currently serves on the board of Kids First California. He is married to Gina Martinez-Keddy and is the proud father of 2 adult children. He is a worm rancher and a guitar player.

Nia MooreWeathers | Community Organizer

Nia MooreWeathers is a California native, and supporter of social interests. She participated in youth mentoring programs and LGBTQ efforts (Vice President of West Campus GSA 2014-2016) during her high school career. She pursued her higher education at Humboldt State University; there she obtained her B.A. in Anthropology, with an emphasis in Evolutionary Medicine (2012-2016). With a skill for research, understanding of cultural health versus public health interests, and motivation to see racial equity established in her community, she began working for Youth Forward in the winter of 2018. As a Community Organizer, she hopes to bring joy, knowledge, and health to youth, and inspire change in policy at a local level. She is the eldest daughter of two hard-working and creative parents, and older sister to a firecracker at Howard State University.