Jeanette Abi-Nader Joins Piedmont Housing Alliance as Deputy Director of Justice & Programs

Piedmont Housing Alliance is honored and excited to announce that Jeanette Abi-Nader will be joining the team as the new Deputy Director of Justice & Programs in November.

For more than a decade, Jeanette has been nurturing and growing Cultivate Charlottesville as its co-Executive Director. Cultivate is a movement-building organization that integrates across three food equity programs: City Schoolyard Garden, Urban Agriculture Collective, and Food Justice Network.

“Piedmont Housing Alliance was the founding partner for the Urban Agriculture Collective farm at Kindlewood, one of Cultivate Charlottesville’s core food equity programs. I am humbled and honored to move from partner to team member, and to have the opportunity to build on the strong foundation of resident-led development at Piedmont Housing,” said Jeanette. “It will be a pleasure to join Sunshine and his team to continue the critical work towards integrating equity into all aspects of the organization. Having raised my family in Charlottesville and grown deep roots, I am excited for the chance to engage in the important work of Piedmont Housing Alliance.”

Jeanette is an experienced food justice leader, trainer, and advocate who supported capacity building for hundreds of organizations across the country. She has a Master of Science in Sustainable Systems with a focus on agroecology and permaculture.

Sunshine Mathon, Executive Director of Piedmont Housing said, “Jeanette has done incredible work leading Cultivate Charlottesville through a remarkable period of growth and through its self-forming as an anti-racist organization. We are humbled by her desire to work with us and know that we will do amazing things together in the coming years.”

The Deputy Director of Justice & Programs is a re-visioned role that elevates Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) work to the Deputy Director level and works to integrate JEDI principles directly into all aspects of the organization.

Jeanette will begin in November and split her time between Cultivate Charlottesville and Piedmont Housing until the end of the year. She will officially start full-time in January.