Rosalinda Guillen: Executive Director

Is the founder and current executive director of Community to Community Development (C2C). She was born in Texas and moved to Mexico where she was raised until she turned ten, then moved to Washington State. She grew in a farm worker family in Skagit County and moved to Bellingham in 1980. She worked at Skagit State Bank for sixteen years, then retired in order to organize farm labor for the United Farm Workers (UFW). She first gained experience as a community organizer after recruitment through the Rainbow Coalition mobilizing support in the state of Washington Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign. Through her campaign work she learned about the farm workers organizing in the state’s largest winery, Chateau Ste. Michelle, and eventually became one of the campaigns lead organizers.

For two years, Rosalinda ran the grassroots worker organizing  campaign which received the first farm worker union contract in the state. Afterwards, Rosalinda worked ina  number of high level organizing jobs for the UFW, which led her to become National Vice-President. She has also worked for La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), a non-profit formed by Cesar Chavez. In working for social justice in the food system she is fulfilling her dream of honoring her father Jesus Guillen, who worked in the fields as a farm worker through the United States until he settled in LaConner.

Erin Thompson, Food Justice Programs Coordinator

Erin joined Community to Community in 2007 and is the Lead Coordinator for Food Justice Programs. She supports Latino farm workers and other low income workers move towards sustainable livelihoods in mutually beneficial cooperative enterprises by providing cultural and language appropriate technical assistance. She is committed to work towards the fulfillment of C2C’s mission of creating justice in the food system.

She has dedicated much of her life to helping others by volunteering not only within the local community, but abroad as well. Since 2001 she has assisted in interpreting and teaching English as a Second Language in Washington public schools, organizations, and abroad in Puerto Rico and Brazil. In 2005, she volunteered in Brazil with the UNICOM Favela Project as a project coordinator developing English programs for low-income communities and also with the martial arts group Capoeira Igualdade teaching self-confidence through Capoeira to youth.

A native of Washington State, Erin graduated from Western Washington University in 2007 with a degree in Spanish Language and Literature and a certificate to teach English as a Second Language. An admirer of language and culture, she has traveled extensively and studied abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Canary Islands in Spain.