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Board
MRG Foundation's board is made up of people from across the state who work with a wide array of organizations and bring decades of experience to the table. The MRG Board provides legal and fiscal oversight and guides our growth as we increase our impact on Oregon's progressive movement.
Elisa is co-director of MRG grantee Community Alliance of Tenants, where she is engaged in policy change work in support of affordable housing, and provides expertise on Oregon’s Residential Landlord Tenant Act. Before her time with CAT, she was an active advocate around youth homelessness, disability rights and domestic violence issues. Elisa was named Best Advocate for Low-Income Tenants by the Willamette Week in 2009.
Ordained as a priest in 1955, Gil soon became connected through his church to helping gang-affected youth in New York City. He worked to bring peace and reconciliation to the youth while responding to the larger community issues of justice and racial equality. He continued his service work in Boston, and became increasingly engaged in the civil rights movement, registering black voters in Mississippi as part of Freedom Summer. Soon after his retirement in 1991 he became active in HIV/AIDS organizations.
Ibrahim is an activist and restaurateur, well known in his community of Eugene for his long-term work on human rights and justice. Ibrahim came to the U.S. at age 18 to attend college in Eugene. Through his work with past MRG-grantee Eugene Middle East Peace Group, he has helped create dialogue between Israelis, Palestinians, Jews and Muslims. His other community leadership work has included a seat on the Eugene Human Rights Commission, serving on the boards of Lane Interfaith Alliance and Willamette World Affairs Council, and co-founding the Eugene Inter-religious Committee for Peace in the Middle East.
Shizuko is a first generation American, the daughter of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. She has worked for the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, and is currently employed by the immigration law firm Immigrant Law Group. About her time as a grantmaker: “I love being on the grantmaking committee. I love the level of discussion and debate. And I love getting to understand the strategies and tactics of amazing social justice grassroots groups throughout Oregon.”
Arbrella is a retired school district administrator. She is on the Eugene Springfield NAACP board, on the Bethel Temple board, and a member of Beta Phi Beta Sorority. She loves MRG’s social justice movement building initiatives, which have meant so much to many organizations. Her activist background is in civil rights and equity. She became connected with MRG when the Eugene Springfield NAACP received a grant for a youth program to transform negative images of African American youth.
Guadalupe Quinn is a long-time community activist who has been working since the mid-1980s in the areas of human rights, racial justice, economic justice, worker rights and immigrant rights. She is the Immigrant Rights Advocacy Program Coordinator with Amigos Multicultural Services Center in Eugene. For the past 14 years Guadalupe's work has focused on Immigrant Rights at the local, state and national level. A Mexican immigrant, she has lived in the U.S. since 1951 and has been in Oregon since 1978.
Rich is the regional organizer for Oregon Action, a social justice organization working to empower low and moderate income people on basic social justice issues such as living wage jobs, health care access, and affordable housing. Rich has been an organizer in poor communities since 1966, when he was a VISTA volunteer with farmworkers in Central Florida and North Carolina. He continued his organizing work in Idaho, California, Minnesota and various communities in Oregon. Rich is married to a minister, and they have two sons.
Cassandra Villanueva has been working in community-based organizing, advocacy, and policy analysis within local, state, and national capacities since the mid-1990s. Her expertise spans interrelated social change and policy issues including criminal and juvenile justice, immigration, labor, education, civil rights, and economic mobility. Since 1997, she has been connected to the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation community via a number of our grantees (serving as both volunteer and staff), and is a former MRG Grantmaker (2005).
Carole has been a community organizer since 1988. As executive director for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, she was involved in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In Eugene Carole worked with MRG grantee Lane Independent Living Alliance, and helped organize for full access to the Eugene Federal Courthouse. A published artist and photographer as well as a theater writer/performer, she uses her art to further social justice.
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