Francis (she/ella) is a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she’s a Comparative Literature and Spanish & Portuguese double major.

She loves to read and has a particular interest in Latin American gothic horror novels written by women. Francis enjoys visiting independent bookstores around the Bay Area, indulging in a sweet treat (or two!) with friends, and learning new languages. 

Astrological Sign: Gemini

Favorite Creative Hobbies: textile crafts, specifically crocheting and embroidering

Kaithleen Apostol is a Filipina creative, strategist, and storyteller based in Berkeley, CA. With nearly a decade of experience across nonprofit, startup, and small business sectors, she brings a heart-led, community-centered approach to marketing, content creation, and brand storytelling.

She’s the founder of Binibini Kreative, a creative studio and social media agency dedicated to uplifting underrepresented voices and building digital spaces rooted in authenticity, culture, and human connection. Through her work, Kaithleen partners with hospitality brands, event organizers, and mission-driven businesses to craft content that’s vibrant, inclusive, and impactful.

Whether she’s behind the camera capturing event content, strategizing a brand campaign, or sharing a reel from her travels, Kaithleen is guided by joy, curiosity, and connection. She’s also a proud ENFJ, Aries, Pilates instructor, and Shih Tzu dog mom who believes in taking up space, dancing often, and celebrating every part of what makes us human.

Kira Joy Williams (she/they) is a multimedia artist, storyteller, and community builder. Kira works with clay to make ceramic sculptures and vessels, and with this practice, she explores what it means to hold. Kira installed her solo thesis exhibition, Home is in the Stories, at a local community garden in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in 2022. This portraiture and oral history project strives to contribute positively and generatively to existing visual representation of Black people in the U.S. by creating archival materials in collaboration with the very people being represented.

Kira has been a featured artist in the Black Lives, Black History, Black Joy, and Black Futures (2024-2025) exhibition in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn and an artist and co-curator for the Rest is Power (2023) and Morphology (2022) exhibitions at New York University. She was a 2023 Create Change Artist-in-Residence with The Laundromat Project, and in 2025, an Artist in Residence at both the Mauser EcoHouse Foundation in Costa Rica and the Alchemy Art Center in Washington. In their sculptures, multi-media assemblage projects, photographic portraits, oral histories, and textile memorials, Kira nerds out on the slowness of film photography, ways of seeing, and weaving. Her artwork is deeply ingrained with and sustained by real world practices of care, service, and revolution, letting relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants in the tradition of queer ecologies lead her practice.

Kira is currently playing with clay, cyanotypes, collage, sculpture, and a photographic process involving turmeric and sunlight!

Lydia Yamaguchi is a community-centered facilitator and program leader dedicated to cultivating wellbeing, connection, and thriving communities in the Bay and beyond. She's worked at the intersection of education and wellness for over ten years, and loves to create spaces for people to rest, reset their nervous systems, and connect.

While she certainly knows her way around a spreadsheet, is a certified Project Management Professional, and will be using her Virgo tendencies to keep things running as smoothly and thoughtfully as possible, what brings her great delight are hands-on activities and opportunities to move her body with joy and freedom.

Lydia loves dancing, growing, preparing, and sharing food, exploring California’s beauty, and finding joy in everyday community connection. At any given point she probably has at least a few different ferments or food preservation projects going on.

Ask her about collecting library cards and Libby-maxing!

Kate Montes-Perales is a recent graduate working for a Bay Area non-profit geared towards uplifting historically underrepresented students in higher education. She has a background in education and Chicanx/Latinx studies and has a deep passion for increasing access to college and ensuring success post-graduation, while prioritizing overall health and wellbeing. 

Outside of her job, you can typically find her at a coffee shop reading, out on a hike, working on one of her many scrapbooks, or at the ceramic studio!

Kate is a Capricorn, and although they’re known to be very work focused, her moon and rising in Cancer help balance her out with an intuitive and empathetic nature.