Pastor Todd Benson, Interim Executive Director
As Interim Executive Director, Pastor Todd is responsible for the overall leadership of the organization while we conduct a search for a permanent Executive Director.
He grew up in North Dakota, where he worked on the family farm from a very young age. After attending college at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, he came to California to attend graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Stanford. After working as an administrator in higher education for several years, he developed a sense of call to the ministry as a second career. For the past three years he has served as pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, a wonderful faith community in West Oakland.
Pastor Todd has been involved in organizing since 2007, ever since attending a class called “Pastor as Community Organizer” during his second year as a part-time seminary student. He has been involved in organizing campaigns on issues ranging from violence prevention to education to housing. He and his wife Jenny Solorio have been married for 32 years, and live in Union City.
contact: todd@fiaeastbay.org
Rabbi Allan Berkowitz, Chief Operating Officer
Rabbi Allan is the COO at FIA East Bay. He is responsible for the ‘business’ side of the organization’s operations, including overseeing HR, financial management and reporting, overseeing fund development systems, and assisting the executive director in the day today management of the organization.
Rabbi Allan has a Masters degree in Education from Columbia University Teachers College and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
After serving in the pulpit for a number of years, Allan decided to pursue executive management in the nonprofit sector. For 17 years he was the Executive Director of the Environmental Volunteers, an environmental education organization that teaches school children to love and respect nature.
In 2017 he felt the calling to focus his energy and talents to support social justice work and began serving as our COO. Rabbi Allan is married to Mindy, the executive director of a social service agency. They have four adult children and an adorable 3-year old grandson who sometimes Zoom bombs FIAEB meetings.
contact: allan@fiaeastbay.org
Emma Paulino, Director of Leadership Formation
Born and raised in Michoacan and Jalisco, Mexico, Emma began organizing as a youth at her church, Santa Elena de la Cruz. In the 1980s she immigrated to Oakland, and launched her organizing career with OCO after fighting for her three children as they struggled in public schools.
Throughout her more than 25 years of organizing, she has worked alongside community members to win local policies and changes on issues concerning education, immigration, illegal dumping, and civic engagement. She is currently the Director of Organizing & Leadership Formation, where she enjoys continuing to do her part in helping ordinary people to discover and exercise their power. For Emma, putting her faith into action by empowering the less privileged is the center of her work.
contact: emmap@fiaeastbay.org
Barbara Lafitte-Oluwole, Program & Operations Manager
Barbara Lafitte-Oluwole has quite a remarkable journey, starting from her upbringing on a farm in Louisiana to her impactful career and community leadership in California. Her experiences, from attending a small rural high school to navigating integration and pursuing further education in New Orleans, shaped her skills and resilience.
Her transition to Los Angeles in 1972 marked the beginning of her career in the pre-press industry, where she honed her skills in typesetting, graphic arts, and darkroom work. Moving to northern California in the 1980s, she continued to build on her expertise, eventually managing small print shops and establishing her own graphics and printing company.
In addition to her professional endeavors, Barbara’s commitment to community service and advocacy is evident in her tenure as a Volunteer Community Leader and Organizer for Oakland Community Organizations (OCO), now known as Faith In Action East Bay (FIAEB), and who in 2003 became the Program & Operations Manager. Her involvement spans over 25 years, during which she actively contributed to violence prevention strategies and initiatives such as Lifelines to Healing, Live Free, and Ceasefire for a safer Oakland.
Though Barbara is a 25-year resident of West Oakland, her dedication to addressing local issues such as public safety and illegal dumping spans the entire city of Oakland. Further, it demonstrates her commitment to improving her city. Her participation in the FIAEB Public Safety Committee and Illegal Dumping Local Organizing Committee underscores her proactive approach to holding city officials accountable and advocating for safer, cleaner neighborhoods.
It inspires her to see individuals leveraging their skills and passion to drive positive change and create a better environment for those around them.
contact: lafitteolu@fiaeastbay.org
Chris Logan, Community Organizer
Chris Logan grew up in Detroit and moved to the Bay Area in 2020 where he served as an organizer for PACT and Sacred Heart Community Service in San Jose. He worked on public safety, alternatives to policing, and affordable housing projects.
Chris received a B.S. in Business Administration from Western Michigan University and an M.Div. from Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, Kansas. He wrote his thesis on how the church should desist from its oppression of LGBQTI+ people so that they are free to love God and love their neighbors.
“My faith inspires my work as a community organizer in every way! I believe organizers are prophets. The handbook for organizers is the book of Exodus. The way Moses did it: he organized Israel to move toward a better life. They got hungry and he fed them. It’s hard to do this work if you don’t have faith. It gives me a sense of groundedness. Otherwise you act from a place that’s desperate, emotional. It doesn’t mean you are not agitational, it means you come from faith and not fear.”
He is a part of the East Bay Church of Religious Science community. He also leads faith forums with university students with explorations of social justice, faith displacement, and the sacraments.
“So much of the work we do is sacramental: transforming people who are victims in situations and turning them into agents. That’s what the sacraments are supposed to do. The first revolution is internal. That is the sacramental part of our work.”
Contact: chrislogan@fiaeastbay.org
Valeria Ochoa, Community Organizer
Valeria (she/her/ella) is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and an immigrant herself. Her parents brought her at the age of one to the United States in search of a better life and future. Valeria grew up in Hayward, California, a neighborhood full of love, resilience, and systemic racism. With her neighborhood, Valeria experienced great loss and hardship due to oppressive policy systems. The difficult experiences that she went through gave her strength, courage, and taught her resiliency.
Valeria has since focused on giving back to her community through climate change activism and organizing. She worked for four years at Rising Sun, a renewable energy education center, where she fought against pollution disparities in low-income communities. As a clean energy organizer, Valeria worked in her hometown assessing energy and water efficiency within Hayward.
Valeria is one of the many Dreamers in the United States. She attended the University of California, Davis where she obtained a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology with an emphasis in Social Work. At Davis she was a research assistant in two research projects that focused on mass incarceration and police brutality. She plans to continue working within the social justice field and coalesce her passion within social justice policy and her narrative as an immigrant woman. Valeria carries her community with her in all the work that she does.
contact: valeria@fiaeastbay.org
Cedrick Emerson, Custom Notifications Coordinator
Cedrick is native of Oakland deeply connected to the community. He is the Ceasefire Custom Notifications Coordinator. His job is to recruit and coordinate clergy and community members to be a part of the Ceasefire custom notifications. He also attends all Ceasefire Partnership meetings, coordinates with the Parole Department and the DVP to connect directly with Ceasefire clients.
contact: cedrick@fiaeastbay.org
Alba Hernandez, Community Organizer
contact: alba@fiaeastbay.org
Theresa Henson, Communications Manager
Theresa Henson has served a variety of faith-based non-profits and justice initiatives. She is passionate about empowering communities through communications. She studied English and Art Studio at University of California Santa Barbara. She has a Master of Arts in Transforming Spirituality from Seattle University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
contact: theresa@fiaeastbay.org
Board of Directors
Pastor Todd Benson, Interim Executive Director
Rabbi Allan Berkowitz, COO
Linda Torres, Co-Chair
Pastor Billy Dixon, Co-Chair
Domingo Delgadillo, Treasurer
Deacon Tim Roberto, Assistant Treasurer
Florence Davis, Secretary
Leshbia Morones, Assistant Secretary
Ana Renderos
Silvia Guzman
Rev. Leslie Takahashi
Yadira Fregoso
Christine Ngounou
Nancy Taylor
Rev. Matt Prinz