Our Team
Ysanet Batista, Founder, Co-op Coordinator, and Chef
Ysanet Batista is a queer Black-Dominican woman, born in Harlem, NY and raised in between the Dominican Republic and Hialeah, FL. Ysanet is a Farm School NYC alum and completed her undergraduate degree @ Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. Ysanet spent a couple of years working in hospitality & tourism before transitioning to community, place and identity centered organizing. When she is not working at Woke Foods, she is supporting other people of color in starting worker-cooperative businesses and learning how to become financially free outside of capitalism. She is also working towards starting a permaculture farm & lodging cooperative in the Dominican Republic.
Frances A. Pérez-Rodríguez , Food and Land Education Coordinator
Frances A. Pérez-Rodríguez was born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York City, and stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world. She is deeply inspired by the reality of maintaining a healthy relationship with the planet and with one another through connecting with and freeing the land. A Farm School NYC graduate, Frances prides herself on being Woke Foods' Food & Land Education Coordinator, Rise & Root Farm's market manager, and a member of La Finca Del Sur Community Farm where she grows produce and herbs (both for herself and the South Bronx Farmers Market/community), and assists with culturally-relevant programming centered around urban agriculture, food sovereignty, and healing with herbalism, political education, and the ability to reimagine our world. She is a daughter, a youth leader, a community organizer, and above all, seeker of truths.