White House Author

Dana Harvey has spent the last decade in nonprofit management and development in areas of environmental justice, food security, education and economic development. As the Executive Director of Mandela MarketPlace, she guides the development and growth of Mandela as a small business incubator that sets an alternative model for building community health and wealth in West Oakland. She directs her organization toward a community-led food system that combines increased access to healthy foods, with economic development to build community health and wealth. Dana led a concerted campaign resulting in the June 2009 opening of Mandela Foods Cooperative to address Oakland’s longtime status as a food desert. Since then, Dana has catalyzed other successful food enterprises which improve health, create wealth, and build assets in low income communities.