Staff

Spencer (he/him) works as the National Membership Organizer at SURJ. He believes that getting folks to show up with actions and dollars of all sizes is critical to building a sense of place and involvement for members. Spencer spent 7 years leading distributed organizing work on electoral campaigns, from city council races to the 2020 presidential election. He’s organized for police accountability in Chicago, land back in Los Angeles, and is continually organizing as a young person with class privilege with Resource Generation. Spencer lives in LA with his husband, small zoo (two cats and a dog), and a garden with 7 types of sage native to California.

Vana (she/they) was born and raised in SoCal. They are passionate about liberation and the cultivating of a world that supports life in all forms. After completing their English – Creative Writing degree she found her way into HR and thus an additional passion in working to support employees. Vana has been motivated to continue learning and growing in HR while finding an organization where she can do work that is in the best interest of the employees she supports and with an organization fueling positive change. As a result, Vana has found her way here to SURJ! They are fueled by a love of the world and a desire to see that everyone has the ability and access to love it and be loved back by it just the same. Vana loves spending time with their found family, partaking in the arts (reading, writing, listening to music, visiting exhibits, dancing, etc.), cuddling their grumpy fur-baby – Bubbles, spending hours on calls with their partner, and finding cafes with rose lattes!

Tessa (she/her) was born and raised in a working class family outside of Cleveland, OH,  where she lives now. Before joining SURJ in March 2024, she worked in anti-sexual violence coalitions, abortion access advocacy, and reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. In addition to her work in communications, she has experience in community outreach and nonprofit fundraising. She loves being an aunt to the many kids in her life, and spends much of her free time with them and lots of other friends and family. When not out and about, Tessa enjoys relaxing at home with her cat and many house plants.

Arielle is a queer woman who lives in Milwaukee, WI where she grew up politically active from a young age. As a teen and young adult, she led local groups fighting for rights of LGBTQIA+ people and immigrants, as well as fighting for abortion access. Prior to coming to SURJ her work was dedicated to labor rights and electoral politics across Wisconsin. Outside of work, Arielle enjoys cooking, reading, and getting outside to hike. Her little family includes her husband, daughter, 3 cats, a turtle, and hermit crabs.

Casey Llewellyn is the Impact Team Organizer for Showing Up for Racial Justice where she organizes a team of SURJ ambassadors to raise the resources needed to organize increasing numbers of white people into the multiracial movements for justice. She is a queer white femme from a mixed owning- and middle- class background and was organized into social justice movements as a young person with wealth by Resource Generation. She has spent over ten years organizing donors, fundraising, and redistributing wealth to movements for liberation with The Hummingbird Collective, Circle for Justice Innovations (CJI), The Better Place Foundation, and Solidaire Network. In this work, she follows in the path of her mother and the queer and Southern community living in the unceded lands of the Massachusett people (Boston, MA) who raised her to create spaces of belonging and community in movement work for everyone, including white people and people with wealth and class privilege.

Casey is also a playwright and dramaturg working in theater and dance and works with individuals as a coach to align their lives with their values. With all her work, she seeks to create spaces of transformation and healing. Casey lives with her partner and cat in the unceded land of the Lenni Lenape peoples in Brooklyn, NY.

David Steely (he/him) is the Senior Donor Organizer at Showing Up for Racial Justice. In that capacity, David works with funders both individually and collectively to give boldly and in alignment with their values. At the core of his work is a belief that cross-class, multi-racial spaces lead to the most profound impact when giving.

With a background in business and philanthropy, David feels called to build bridges both to strengthen and widen movement community. He believes that moving money to resource movement work is crucial to our collective liberation.

As an organizer Kristina (she/her) works on issues ranging from a people-led county ballot measure increasing oversight of the Sheriff’s department and aimed at reducing the scope of the carceral system in Los Angeles to flipping Georgia in the 2020 general and 2021 Senate runoffs. Kristina thrives on relational organizing and leadership development in strategic movement aimed at shifting power dynamics to build up all human development. SURJ has been her political home since 2016. She grew up in Vermont, comes from theater and storytelling, is a proud union member, and loves to swim almost anywhere.

Linnea (she/her) has been coaching SURJ chapters since 2017, and was an active leader in building the SURJ Buffalo chapter, which she called home for six years. She now lives in Minneapolis, MN. She grew up the youngest of six daughters in a working class family in Niagara Falls, NY. She has a BA in Public Policy and a Master of Urban Planning, both from the University at Buffalo. She loves the rush and intensity of direct action and the new connections forged through door to door canvassing, finds data entry soothing, and feels best when she’s creating brave, loving spaces for folks to vision, strategize, struggle, and take risks together. She formerly organized with the Clean Air Coalition of WNY, running campaigns for environmental, racial, and economic justice. Outside of organizing, she likes trying new recipes and hanging out with her partner Clarissa, their cats Waffles and Rafael, and their dog Joni.

Mae loves brainstorming sessions, project plans, returning emails quickly and supporting individuals and teams to be themselves at work. Most recently, Mae was the Director of Operations at Caring Across Generations where she built systems from the ground up for the growing campaign that works to expand the care infrastructure. Mae was raised in Miami Beach, Florida and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She enjoys, in no particular order (and all together if dreams can come true) bubble tea, romantic comedies, “hot takes” from twitter, salty beach air, mangos and when her kids are entertaining themselves.