April is a leading voice in the advancement of alternative, climate-smart & healthy building methods and has been a pioneer in the southeast. She is an Architect, small business owner, Executive Director, and Adjunct Professor; April has been a keynote speaker and presenter to many organizations and universities over the past decade.

April has been a Charleston County resident since 2004 and has devoted her career to the advancement of sustainable architecture and affordable housing. After advancing her career at several Charleston architecture firms, in 2011 she took a leap of faith and founded Root Down Designs, a women-led architecture firm dedicated to sustainable architecture and affordable housing in the south where she serves as the Principal Architect. April pioneered several carbon-negative and alternative housing prototypes in Charleston, such as a Rammed-Earth home and Compressed Earth Blocks. She has worked with multiple building jurisdictions in helping clients obtain building permits for alternative materials and healthy housing. Working with financially-challenged clients and creating affordable building options has been a strong tenant of the Root Down team.

As a way to educate about these healthy and natural building materials, she began teaching building workshops with a ‘community-building’ ethos embedded. April has led over 4 dozen community-building workshops and courses across the southeast, including educational institutions such as Greenville Technical College, The Governor’s School of Science & Math, and the American College of Building Arts. Her passion for sustainable architecture and community-building workshops was noticed by The American College of the Building Arts, and she began serving as the Professor of Sustainable Materials in 2018.

www.rootdowndesigns.com

Connect with April! Donate $300 to RDBC for a 1-hour Zoom/Call Consultation on Hempcrete!

Tracy is the Executive Director of the Black Belt Justice Center and the Co-Alchemist of the Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund, a multidisciplinary, cooperative ecosystem rooted in Black ecocultural traditions and textile arts to regenerate custodial landownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the rural South. As a great-great granddaughter of sharecroppers turned independent farmers in eastern North Carolina, Tracy views her work as a continuation of her ancestors’ value paradigm rooted in collective land tenure, spirit-culture reclamation, and ecological harmony. Decades of farmer-led organizing combined with Tracy’s leadership over the last three years through the Black Farmers’ Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign advanced reparative land justice for Black farmers through various federal legislations and agricultural policies including a USDA foreclosure moratorium, debt cancellation, and direct payments for past discrimination (these policy recommendations became pillars in President Biden’s 100-day action plan). Tracy has elevated both intracommunity and national discourses regarding reparative justice through participation in numerous racial and land justice convenings including the “Whiteness As Property: A Twenty-Year Appraisal” Critical Race Studies Symposium at UCLA School of Law. Tracy is energized by the urgent call to (re)build a decolonized society governed by the values of racial equity, indigenous knowledges, spiritual journeying, and cooperative economy. She believes the Southern Black Rural Imagination is regenerative when boundless and interdependent. To learn more about our liberatory ecosystem, visit www.acresofancestry.org.

Tom is the owner of Queen and Comb! They provide raw honey from their hives, nucleus colonies, honeybee education and consultation in Charleston, SC

Queen & Comb

Kate Counts has spent the past 30 years engaged in collective community building, grounded in a deep belief in honesty and in building relationships across differences as pathways to growth and social change. These values have guided her work as an organizer, leader, educator and, most importantly, a listener and learner.

Her experience spans leading college-run organizations, coordinating programs for nonprofits, teaching elementary school, and providing service through house cleaning and waiting tables. For the past 18 years, she has guided movement through yoga and fitness, co-founded the nonprofit Meet Us on the Frontlines, and pursued her passion for speaking and writing to inspire collective care and connection.

Over the decades, Kate has worked to bridge the worlds of wellness and social change. Through lived experience, she understands the power of where these worlds intersect, holding space for accountability, compassion, empathy, awareness, and meaningful action. She brings this practice into every aspect of her life, from relationships and parenting to collaboration-building and engaging in difficult conversations, all while never losing sight of the joy found in genuine connection.

Kate firmly believes that everyone has something significant to contribute to the world we are creating. No action is too small when it moves us toward a world where all beings are seen, heard, respected, and loved.

BIO for Rootdown

With over 30 years of experience building and sustaining successful businesses, Maria Rivers—known to most as Rio—has come to see problem-solving as the true nature of her art. After moving to Charleston, SC in 2010, Rio found both her home and her “fRamily” among a community of like-minded cultivators, creators, and changemakers.

Rio believes that profit should never exist in isolation from conservation and community. She is deeply committed to operating every facet of her professional life through a People, Planet, Profit (P3) lens—holding that without honest, symbiotic sustainability, where Mother Earth and community are valued alongside financial success, everything ultimately fails. For Rio, real growth and lasting impact come from love for community and stewardship of our precious planet.

After 15 years in publishing and more than a decade in the culinary arts, Rio found her happy place in wood-fired pizza. She now operates a local catering service focused on functional food and thoughtfully crafted, wood-fired pizzas—bringing nourishment, intention, and connection to every table.

“Being asked to serve on the board of Rootdown Building Collective is a profound honor. In this time of active engagement and collective responsibility, I’m ready to be a grounded and effective voice. These are heavy times for good people—and in a symphony of chaos, my choice is clear: to step forward and conduct.”

— Maria “Rio” Rivers

Zauditu is in her 3rd year of studying carpentry at the American College of Building Arts in Charleston. She is originally from Brooklyn NY and the bay area of Northern California. She is a woman of a certain age, passionate about sustainable building, building materials and preservation.

www.acba.edu

Currently residing in South Carolina’s Golden Corner, James brings over a decade of hands-on experience in natural building and art. He honed his skills and gained invaluable insights into working with natural materials as an intern at The Owl Swamp Project. James also partnered with a talented artist to organize several public earthen art installations in Greenville, showcasing the creative potential of natural materials.

Passionate about the pursuit of truly affordable housing, James is equally inspired by creating art with wild clay and other found materials. He continually explores innovative ways to highlight and celebrate the natural materials that surround us.

THE SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE

BLACK BELT JUSTICE CENTER

ACRES OF ANCESTRY

CFLT

CHARLESTON CLIMATE COALITION

SC HEMP ASSOCIATION

T. CALLAHAN DESIGNS

BRIGHTMA FARMS

FRESH FUTURE FARMS

ACBA

BFCA

SC HOUSING JUSTICE

CHARLESTON AREA JUSTIC MINISTRY