Dar'Nesha Weary Founder & CEO [email protected] Dar’Nesha Weary is a Seattle native with over twenty years of experience in the nonprofit sector, where her mission has been to serve others, build community, and make a positive impact by challenging racism, promoting acceptance of people from different backgrounds, raising awareness, and using her voice to address hate and to promote kindness. She began her career as a Program Director at the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club. For the latter part of her career, she has risen in the ranks of the YMCA of Greater Seattle, beginning as the Dale Turner Branch Membership Engagement Director and ending in the corporate office as the Program Executive of Membership, overseeing membership engagement operations of 14 branches. Dar’Nesha is the director of the award-winning Northside Step Team, which recently worked with the artist LIZZO(!) on a sisterhood project, and is a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated (one of 9 Historically Black Greek Organizations). She is exceedingly active with community engagement and education around diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the greater Seattle area.
Mikayla Weary, President [email protected] Seattle based artist and film student Mikayla Weary has been honoring her culture through creativity since a young age. Mikayla values storytelling in an interdisciplinary aspect and crosses generic boundaries of genre through myth, poetry, and narrative. Mikayla is currently the president of Black Coffee Northwest in Seattle, Washington which is a nonprofit benefiting Black youth and is working towards her B.A. in film from Dillard University. Mikayla is currently the president of the Dillard University Afrofuturism club, and an active member of the Student Government Association and is apart of the reproductive justice task force.
Diana Muuru is a freshly graduated UW graduate with a Bachelors in Business Administration with a concentration in Management and a minor in Human Rights, specifically tailored to work in human services to serve and help others. She is the Event and Program Manager and Youth Director of Grounded, the award winning youth development space located in Shoreline at Black Coffee Northwest. Diana aspires to be a part of the change she wants to see in the world by carrying out her purpose in striving to help others in any possible way she can while also uplifting the next generation of leaders and change makers as she goes. Her goal is to one day own her own nonprofit organization that lives on beyond her years in carrying out her mission globally.
Haben Haileslassie, Program Director [email protected] Haben Haileslassie is the Project Manager and Youth Director of Grounded: An award-winning nonprofit organization located at Black Coffee Northwest that aims to heal and thrive black and brown youth. She is currently studying Criminal Justice at Shoreline Community College with the intention of working in Victim Advocacy, mainly focusing on Gender and Sexual Based Violence. Haben has been an active member in bringing awareness of injustices from being an officer of the Shorecrest High School Black Student Union to advocating for the Genocide victims in her home state Tigray, Ethiopia. Her goal is to help and heal members of vulnerable populations while creating safe spaces for people to breathe and come together.