Leadership Team

Donna Chavis, Programs and Organizational Development (she/her)

Donna has been a leader in the national environmental justice movement since its inception in eastern North Carolina in the 1980s. As a co-founder of the Robeson County Community Action Center in 1980, Donna participated in multiple environmental justice campaigns in nuclear and toxic waste throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As a Commissioner of the Racial Justice Commission of the United Church of Christ, she played an important role in the Commission’s environmental justice work, including as a member of the Planning Committee. for the First National Summit of Environmental Leadership of People of Color. She was the founding director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s national racial and economic justice program, led the office of cultural programming for the North Carolina Indian Cultural Center, and served as the Executive Director of NCGives. She has served on the boards of directors of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the Fund for Southern Communities, the Changemakers Fund, Robeson Health Care Corporation, the Humane Society of Robeson County, NC Center for Nonprofits, the National Advisory Committee for the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Childhood Obesity Initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, and Wildacres Leadership Initiative. In her current role as a senior fossil fuel activist for Friends of the Earth, Donna leads the campaign to stop construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, the only pipeline on President Trump’s list of 50 infrastructure and national security priorities. . Born in the town of Lumbee, she resides in her hometown of Pembroke, North Carolina, with her spouse, Mac Legerton. They are the parents of four and grandparents of four children. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke with a BA in Mathematics and Psychology.

Alecia Gaines, NCCJC Programs and Media and Communications (she/her)

Alecia’s passion for the land and its care began early in her childhood growing up in the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. After moving to North Carolina in 1985, she gravitated toward the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the state’s many beaches. It was after walking a trail in Piedmont in North Carolina that she found her calling in advocacy and environmental justice. Alecia has held leadership positions with the Sierra Club of North Carolina; first as president of a local group, the first African American woman in their 30-plus year history, then as a member of the Equity, Justice and Inclusion committee, as well as the NC Sierra Club Steering Committee. She is a general member of the Greensboro Sustainability Council, a founding member of the Solar Power Now Coalition, and a volunteer coordinator for the 2017 Greensboro Women’s March. Alecia has been a guest speaker for environmental studies courses at UNC-Greensboro and Guilford College she served as a panelist for discussions on urban sustainability and public-private partnerships at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. She is a member of the Haw River Assembly board. She has a BA in Political Science from Winston Salem State University and an MA in Adult Education from North Carolina A&T State University. A simple speaker, Alecia is a fighter for environmental justice and peace, an agent for supporting resilience among at-risk communities, and an advocate for the most damaged and least consulted communities of color affected by climate emergencies.

Liz Kazal, NCCJC Fundraising & Finance (she/her)

Liz Kazal is a progressive political strategist in North Carolina. Her career spans over a decade and includes work across the southeast. Most recently, she served as the state director for America Votes in North Carolina, working to coordinate progressive organizations to elect progressive champions and expand access to the ballot. Her roots are in environmental organizing, where first she organized college students in Mississippi, then in North Carolina she organized to fight against the expansion of oil and gas in the state. Liz grew up on the bayou of the Mississippi Gulf Coast which installed a deep connection to the land and natural wonder around her. She lives in Raleigh with her husband and her two adorable dogs Freddie and Coco.

Jodi Lasseter, Co-Founder and Co-Director of NCCJC; Programs and organizational development (she/her)

Originally from Asheville, NC, Jodi is an educator, facilitator, community catalyst, and cultural worker. Jodi has been engaged at all levels of the climate justice movement to build power and alignment. Through previous positions as Director of Organizational Development for the international Amazon Alliance, Program Director for the National Engage Network, and Director of Climate Justice for the state PowerUp NC program, she has worked closely with hundreds of grassroots leaders in the US. USA and abroad. Through her own consulting practice, Turn the Tide, Jodi offers workshops in popular education, meeting design and facilitation, strategic organizational development, ecofeminist trainings, and spiritual activism circles. She was a co-founder of the Healing Our Movement Ecosystem (HOME) and is a facilitator of the Work that Reconnects. She is the Energy Justice NC activist for Friends of the Earth and serves on the steering committees of the Climate and Jobs Roundtable coalition and Energy Justice NC. She also serves as Co-Chair of the Alliance for Climate Justice’s Just Recovery Task Force. Jodi has a BA in Women’s Studies and Anthropology from UNC-Chapel Hill and was a Social Change Fellow at Clark University, where she earned her MA in International Development, Community and Environment. She currently lives in Durham, where he delights in singing in community, walking through the woods, playing drums with the Just Jammers, and exploring the best local swimming holes.

Gregg Lasseter, NCCJC Fundraising & Finance and Organizational Development (he/him)

Gregg Lasseter is a career accountant with 50 years of experience working in the public, private and non-profit sectors. He is now semi-retired. Gregg has worked in the hospitality industry, for a municipal government, a large regional hospital, and several small businesses. He left the corporate world in 2001 after 17 years as Vice President of Finance for the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Gregg started his own accounting and consulting business working primarily with non-profit organizations in the Triangle and as the Finance Director for NCCJC. When he takes a break from the numbers, you can find him with Betty observing the abundant wildlife in the area, including eagles, herons, ospreys, otters, foxes, red wolves, and an occasional black bear. Gregg and Betty are committed to climate justice to ensure that every being and every place is respected and appreciated.

Connie Leeper, Co-Founder and Co-Director of NCCJC; Fundraising and Finance and Media and Communications (she/her)

Originally from Kannapolis, North Carolina, Connie has prioritized building an intersectional justice movement for the past 45 years. As a community organizer and popular educator, she has first-hand knowledge of how the poor, working-class people of color, LGBTQI + people, women, and youth have been continually marginalized and discarded. Helping individuals and groups find their voice to overcome internalized oppression has been at the center of her work throughout her life. She is the organizing director for Durham-based NC WARN, a 32-year-old energy and climate justice nonprofit working for a rapid transition to clean renewables. Previously, she worked at several other nonprofits serving affected communities, including the Piedmont Peace Project, Highlander Research and Education Center, and the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network. She has served on various grant award committees and boards, and is currently on the leadership committee of the Pauli Murray Project and the board of directors of the Southeast Climate & Energy Justice Network (SCEN). SCEN is the largest regional collaboration of clean energy and climate change advocates and organizations in twelve southeastern states. She earned her BA in Sociology from an HBCU, Barber Scotia College. Connie, who currently lives in Durham, enjoys searching for thrift stores for treasures, playing all forms of percussion with the Just Jammers, and bringing the beauty of pumpkin art to the masses.

Mark Ortiz, NCCJC Media & Communications (he/him)

Mark Ortiz is a scholar-activist completing a PhD in Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research has focused on historical youth and student activism and contemporary transnational youth climate movements, the international politics of climate change, and the use of creative arts and social media in climate change activism. Prior to beginning his PhD, Mark attended the University of Alabama where he was a Southern Regional Organizer with the national student network United Students Against Sweatshops, a board member of the Worker Rights Consortium, and an environmental-labor policy intern at the AFL-CIO. While a graduate student, he has worked with organizations including CliMates, the Climate Reality Project, NC WARN, and international youth networks and attended the U.N. climate negotiations and discussions on sustainable development as an observer. When not organizing, Mark enjoys producing music, playing guitar, reading, and writing and is always seeking ways to apply these creative passions in collaborations for climate justice.

Bevelyn Ukah, NCCJC Programs and Organizational Development (she/her)

Bevelyn Afor Ukah works as a consultant to train youth and adults in building skills that encourage equity, organizational efficiency, cultural connection, and collaboration. She has traveled around the world and has lived in three countries.

She is a self-taught artist, developing her practice as a form of inner resilience, hoping that her work inspires others to build their own self and community-love practices. She is a part of the Black Women’s Art Collective of Public Art Practice.

Bevelyn is passionate about discouraging divisiveness and she works with audiences in their journeys to recognize multiple truths. She is moved most when working in multigenerational settings.

Bevelyn received her Bachelors in International Studies, Sociology and Anthropology from Guilford College where she was a Bonner Scholar and Multicultural Leadership Scholar. She completed her Masters in Intercultural Service, Leadership and Management (with a concentration on facilitation and social justice).

Bevelyn is the founding consultant of AFI Oak Consulting and co-founding consultant of the Auralite Collective.

She coordinates the Food Youth Initiative Program (FYI), a program of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), which engages youth that lead food justice work across North Carolina. She also co-coordinates the Racial Equity in Food Systems initiative at CEFS, which develops a shared understanding of language, history and race. She works as the Capacity Building Director at W9 Solutions, supporting the continued growth of youth leadership development through soccer, especially for youth most marginalized from the sport. She serves on the Transplanting Traditions Community Farm Board, the National Rooted in Community Board and the NC Climate Justice Collective.

Ayo Wilson, NCCJC Fundraising and Finance (he/him)

Throughout his life, Ayo has lived and worked in impacted frontline communities in North Carolina and Ohio, using his skills in nonprofit management, organizational management and development, and community organizing to support and empower people. affected through the arts, climate / environmental justice, and group health / fitness. In 2013, he traveled to Liberia, where he analyzed and provided recommendations for a project to digitize national land records managed by the World Bank-funded Liberia Center for National Territorial Documents and Records. He holds a BA in Communication, Electronic Media / Broadcasting from Appalachian State University and an MA in Public Administration, cum laude from NC Central University. He is a member of the Haw River Assembly and NC WARN Board of Directors, has taught Zumba classes in North Carolina and Texas along with climate justice work with his brother Omari as Twin ZIN. He likes to offer cultural work through Just Jammers, NCCJC’s own drum group.

Omari Wilson, NCCJC Organizational Development and Media and Communications (he/him)

Omari M. Wilson, Esq. was born in Jackson, Mississippi, but moved to North Carolina with his family in 1987 and was raised in the West End community of Mebane, his father’s hometown and a historic black community founded by former slaves in Alamance County after the Civil War. For the past several years, the West End Revitalization Association (WERA), a non-profit community improvement organization founded in 1994 by Omari’s parents Omega & Brenda Wilson and other concerned neighbors, has led the effort to provide basic services to the community, such as adequate water and sewer, road paving, and repair and cleaning of faulty septic systems. Since he was in high school, Omari has worked with WERA to help provide healthy and sustainable solutions for affected communities. Deeply inspired by the efforts of his parents and neighbors, Omari received his BA in Psychology from Appalachian State University in 2001 and earned his Juris Doctor in 2005 from Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio. Omari worked for 13 years as a staff attorney at a non-profit public interest law firm in Durham, North Carolina, before transitioning into private practice in 2020. His legal practice focuses on estate planning and administration, foreclosure defense, heirs property issues, and other real property matters, with an emphasis on building and preserving wealth through real property ownership for traditionally marginalized communities. Since May 2016, Omari has served on the Audubon North Carolina Advisory Board of Directors. Additionally, through his passion for fitness, Omari became a licensed Zumba instructor in July 2018 and now offers Zumba fitness classes and group dance with his brother Ayo Wilson as TwinZIN.

Kaleia Martin

Kaleia Martin,MSW is a community advocate who firmly believes in the power of individuals and communities to make extraordinary change. She has a passion for working in an authentic, community-centered way that allows for typically excluded voices to be elevated. She is a forward-thinking leader who thrives to push everyone around her to dream up more radical possibilities.

Kaleia is the co-chair of the environmental justice working group for the Southeast Climate and Energy Network (SCEN). She also has experience as a youth organizer, program manager, facilitator, and film maker. She is the founder and striving embodier of Disrupt Transform, LLC.