Meet the Team!

It is an honor to serve on TTBP Board of Directors. I am looking forward to sharing in the goal of establishing food sovereignty and reviving our culture, as well as our relationship to other tribes.

I currently work for homeland security as a contractor caring for the undocumented minors coming into the US from the south Texas border. Previously I served as an Account Manager at Healthcare Services Group at a Nursing and Rehab Center. I have an Associates degree in Alcohol & Substance Abuse Counseling and spent 7 years working at Duffy’s Napa Valley Rehab where I worked as a manager and held classes including mindfulness and meditation.

I live in Brackettville, Texas with my artist husband who is Lipan Apache. I am a mother of five and grandmother of seven. I am Navajo, a drum maker and carrier. I currently lead a drum circle in my town for women's support, healing and strength. I want women to always feel supported by women in healthy balanced ways. Recently, with the Lipan Apache band, we started up the Koh’ee Brackettville Community Garden with the goal of establishing food sovereignty and reviving our culture. In my free time I sew ribbon skirts. My husband and I are vendors at powwows and other events. I believe in Lucille's dream to bring back the buffalo and the matriarch leadership we were always

meant to hold.

Helga Garza Azetca Chichimeca Coahuilteca ancestry is the Executive Director of Agri-Cultura Network (ACN), a South Valley of Albuquerque farmer owned cooperative. The network is inclusive of 72 allied farms and ranchers from urban and rural Rio Grande communities committed to sustainable and regenerative growing methods. Helga is inspired by justice, guided by her ancestral ceremonial agricultural calendar engaging the community through a holistic intergenerational approach in developing a sustainable food system and environmental agriculture economy for New Mexico. By developing community driven markets that strengthen and build assets of local farmers and ranchers while preserving New Mexico’s historic culture and tradition in sustainable agriculture. Helga is leading efforts that have increased equitable access to healthy local food. By removing structural barriers such as procurement policy, price, availability, and increasing nutritional knowledge through curriculum development of a holistic family-base wellness program that is bilingual, culturally relevant, and community based. Through these efforts Helga Garza is building the capacity ofNew Mexico’s urban and rural small farmers ability to keep production local through an effective farm to market system ensures household livelihood, by providing farmer’s the opportunity to grow food for their community contributes to positive health outcomes, economic activity and wellbeing. Helga is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader 2018-2021, Castanea Fellow 2020, Chair Governing Board of the New Mexico Food and Agricultural Policy Council, President of South Valley Main Street.

Tricia Whitman is from the San Antonio area and is a grass roots Indigenous researcher focusing on the Cibolo Valley area. She began researching her family’s oral history of Native American and Mexican ancestry in the late 90’s. Like many families in Texas, finding family records proved difficult and it wasn’t until 2018 that she was able to reconnect with her missing family branches that had been separated for a little over 100 years. After taking a DNA test in 2019 to confirm these new family relationships, Tricia created a Genetic Database based on her mother’s DNA. Participants in the database include families from across the nation and of varying descents: European, Mexican, First Nations, Northern and Southern Indigenous, Adoptees, and Mission Descendants. While the database started out small, it continues to grow everyday as she connects with more “Genetic Cousins.” Her work is committed to serve the Indigenous communities of Texas by educating and preserving the history of the people.

Tricia is an Enrolled Member of Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, Associate Member on the Schertz Historical Preservation Committee, and a Board Member for the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project.