Cosecha Youth Empowerment Program

The Cosecha Youth Empowerment Program includes activities such as the Youth Environmental Artist Summit, the Parking Lot Poetry Series, art workshops, spiritual circles, and the painting of community murals. Participants take part in cultural events and projects including Indigenous Peoples’ Day Commemoration, Dia de Guadalupe commemoration, Day of the Dead, OAXACA TIERRA DEL SOL- GUELAGUETZA, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES GATHERING, BALLET FOLKLORICO ST. HELENA DEL VALLE, and BALLET FOLKLORICO NETZAHUALCÓYOTL. The program also includes art and race dialogues in schools, Community Information Fairs, youth field trips, camps, and social emotional wellness workshops, as well as murals in public spaces such as downtown Guerneville and Rancho-Cotati High School.

• Ages: 11–18 years old

Raizes Collective launched in 2015 as a people-of-color-led organization in Sonoma County and received a City of Santa Rosa Merit Award in 2017 for Strengthening Our Neighborhoods. Raizes Collective’s mission is to empower and mobilize communities of color through the arts, culture, leadership development, community education, artistic outlets, and civic campaigns. Programa Cosecha is a student-led, community-supported after-school program that brings together local artists, community, and youth so that youth may use art and cultural traditions to heal, empower themselves, and engage. Youth from several county schools participate in Programa Cosecha, and Raizes Collective facilitates healing within bilingual and bicultural communities and offers healing and understanding through cultural and artistic outlets, as well as civic campaigns.

Raizes Collective was created to address the need for a people-of-color-led organization in Sonoma County to lift up marginalized community members, primarily Latinx, Immigrant, and Indigenous communities, through art and culture. The organization supports the empowerment and engagement of underrepresented communities in Sonoma County, including Latinx, Immigrant and Indigenous youth, women, farmworker families, and communities and artists of color. Historically marginalized artists, including those in Latinx, Immigrant, and Indigenous communities, have the opportunity to exhibit their art and voice cultural experiences not found in mainstream settings, and Raizes provides artist members support such as showcasing and opportunities to exhibit or perform. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES GATHERING is a biannual gathering that offers tribal communities and Indigenous-identifying people a space to gather and share dances, food, and cultures.

Raizes Collective partnered with Community Action Partnership to offer workshops with a focus on social-emotional learning through the arts, and it offers critical outreach and information to communities of color during natural disasters in culturally effective ways. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Raizes provided prevention information in culturally specific ways such as distributing artistic posters and information cards. ALMAS LIBRES, connected to Raizes, offers Immigrant and Indigenous women access to information, know-your-rights training, leadership development, and policy campaigns, and ALMAS LIBRES helps to lead the Northern California Coalition For Just Immigration Reform.

The leadership team connected to this work includes Isabel Lopez, Founder and Executive Director; April Reza, Youth Program Director; Renee Saucedo, Community Organizer; and board members Kathryn Lombera, Lisa Diaz-Mcquaid, Katie Greenwald, and Jazzy Stravou. Isabel Lopez obtained her B.S. in Business from Sacramento State and was a member of M.E.Ch.A of Sacramento State (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán). Kathryn Lombera earned her bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of California in Santa Cruz, and Katie Greenwald has earned a BA in Public Relations as well as an MBA.

Last updated March 13, 2026.