RRFP is a grassroots organization, with a small rockstar team of paid staff.
Our leadership is run on a collective model, made up of folks who are predominately queer and come from all walks of life! We have volunteers who are doulas, caretakers of children, people of color, artists, nurses, teachers, underemployed, dreamers, youth, gender nonconforming, playful, imaginative, love snacks and so much more.
Meet our Staff:
Ayé | Community & Volunteer Engagement Accomplice | Pronouns: they/homie
Ayé (pronounced "Eye-yay") is a maker, shaker, parent, partner, birth and abortion doula, lactation counselor, and community organizer. As a poor, black, and queer woman, they were radicalized by Loretta Ross at Decolonize Birth conference in 2017 with the charge to build our own systems and networks outside of the ones built to harm and oppress us. A true Sagittarius sun, they are steadily expanding getting free as fuck: shaking ass, making medicine, growing food, preserving food, and fiber arts. While also a Capricorn moon prepping and survival planning for a homestead. And always always keeping the work community focused, values driven, radically honest, free, and full of pleasure.
Billie Kate | Caller Support Coordinator |Pronouns: they/them/BK
Billie Kate is a lover of herbs, outdoors, writing, dreaming, scheming, and holding things in their hands. They’ve always been a bit of a space cadet, but that’s just the real world can’t keep up with all of this imaginative brainpower! As intake/caller coordinator with RRFP BK works to eliminate our clients barriers to getting to their appointments. This can look like scheduling ubers and lyfts, booking hotels, pledging funds for the cost of the appointment, and driving folks themself.
They got into this work from being a full spectrum doula with a focus in birth, abortion, and loss. They have met folks in so many different situations by driving folks from all across the state and within the city. They’ve been in Richmond since 2015 and have found a home here. Reproductive Justice work is their political home. And they’ve found community in Queer Southerners doing all types of work that is so interconnected like food justice, decarceral justice, language justice, and environmental justice. The work we are doing is so interconnected. They love their mycelial network of Queers reaching all through the Southeast US. They’re from South Carolina, live in Richmond, and they have both blood and chosen family all throughout the South.
Natalie | Operations Coordinator | Pronouns: she/her
Natalie is RRFP’s first Operations Coordinator, and is very excited to grow into and alongside the collective — her priorities center the cocreation of transparent processes and horizontal structures that help critical abortion work run smoothly and give folks more space to dedicate to both rest and the radical imaginary. Support roles and behind the scenes logistics fulfill her, but she’s always down to collab on ways to share resources, eliminate barriers, disrupt violent systems, and redistribute wealth. As a disabled person, she feels strongly about accessibility and disability justice. As someone with a deep appreciation for feeling small in nature, the commons and environmental justice are close to her heart. As an organizer with Richmond SONG, she believes reproductive justice is foundational to abolition and building the world we deserve. She’s a double Gemini with an irrational number of tabs open and her other loves include: the South, illustration, zines and poli/pop ed, chosen family, mutual aid and collective care, communication and boundaries, cooking too much food for other people, big leaves, being in queer community, and porch-sitting with her neurotic dog.
Keisha | Development Coordinator | Pronouns: she/her
Keisha (she/her) is an educated and tested supporter of birth, parenting, and the many different ways families exist in an ever-changing society in America... She's also a self-proclaimed Game of Thrones nerd and speaks 3 words in High Valyrian. Her work centers around impacting black maternal mortality and morbidity disparities in her community of Richmond, Virginia through a reproductive justice core and foundation. Keisha currently supports families as a full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, birth assistant, online community facilitator, mom, partner, and friend.
Pegauh | Fundraising & Sustainability Coordinator | Pronouns: she/they
Pegauh (pronounced peg-aw) is a community organizer, tinkerer, and problem solver. She thrives in people centered roles with wiggle room to think outside the box - she’s forever cooking up ways to bring people together for a shared goal or to solve shared problems. Pegauh fiercely believes these solutions don’t lie in the oppressive structures we live in, but in ones we create ourselves. Coupled with her passion for community autonomy, harm reduction and bodily agency, and mutual aid, Pegauh found her home at RRFP. She enjoys building affinity groups and spaces in marginalized communities grounded in collective care, refuge, healing, and joy. Growing up first generation Iranian in the Midwest, Pegauh saw the value in forging strong community bonds as a means of care and protection.
When she isn’t organizing, you can find Pegauh exploring local parks, dancing in the living room, and falling asleep on the couch to her comfort movies of Jurassic Park and National Treasure. She is a performer at heart and loves a good jam sesh on the piano, belting her heart out at karaoke, and spoken word. Art makes her happy, as do bright colors, nature, and sci-fi everything. Other things that bring Pegauh joy include morbid humor, absurd memes, fries, human connection, skill sharing, and figuring out how stuff works.