Mother, eco-feminist, entrepreneur, coach, solutionary…
Laura M. Ridenour (she/they) is a consultant, writer, and a resilience coach with 20+ years experience in the nonprofit sector and a lifetime of experience in food movements.
Laura was born in Detroit, Michigan, but spent most of her childhood traveling, either with her parents or between her parents respective homes - one in a 1,200 person intentional farm comunity in rural Tennessee and the other in urban Santa Cruz, California. Both homes were rooted in activism, ecofeminism and environmentalism. Her ancestors came to North America from Ireland, Poland, England, Germany and France. She currently lives with her young son on the present day and ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish People, also know as Bellingham, Washington.
Laura has extensive experience in marketing and community engagement, beginning in her teen years as an environmental activist and helping with her family’s organic food business. For over a decade she focused on economic and community development with farm and food-based businesses, including running a beginning farmer business incubator. She founded the EatLocalFirst.org campaign, and food policy councils and campaigns outside of Washington. She co-founded the Farm Fund’s Revolving Loan, as well as the Whatcom Food Network. Laura is the co-author of the 8th edition of the 196-page Washington State Small Farm Direct Marketing Guide.
Laura is adept at group process and facilitating practices for equity, inclusion, and power sharing - such as liberating structures (LS design) in online and in-person formats, and bringing holocracy and consent-based governance to the establishment of the North American Food Systems Network.
Laura has a M.A. in Sociology of Food and Agriculture with a focus on qualitative methods, adult transformational experiences and human dimensions of disaster and recovery, as well as a B.A. in Food Systems and Social Change. Laura also holds certificates in ecological horticulture and organic farming, as well as in Integrative Somatic Trauma Healing Therapy, Mind-Body Coaching, and is in the advanced year of Somatic Experiencing (SE) training to help recover from burnout and stress.
MISSION STATEMENT
Helping people build capacity, practice resilience, and center equity so we can transform the world.
WORK WITH LAURA
My ideal clients are women, femmes, mothers and leaders interested in the body as an ecology that has innate medicine, and those who are wiling to learn how nervous system practices can be resources for navigating life’s changes and Earth evolution.