Leading With Nature: Pei-Yee Woo
Meet a Bay Area nonprofit executive centering farmers’ wisdom and savoring nature’s tiny delights.
Leading With Nature is a special interview series spotlighting women leaders who are taking action for nature and turning to it for support in hopes it brings you joy and inspiration on your own path.
In this installment, I interview Pei-Yee Woo, Co-Executive Director of Kitchen Table Advisors (KTA). Pei-Yee’s work is rooted in cultivating collaborative relationships and resourcing community-centered solutions. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she's spent the past two decades working to build equitable and resilient regional food systems. I’m so delighted to share our conversation with you.
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Can you share an experience you’ve had with the natural world that shaped who you are today?
My time as an educator in the Marin Headlands was pivotal. I had the incredible opportunity to live in the national park and experience the subtle rhythms of the landscape, seeing its shifts through the seasons and years. It afforded me the beautiful gift of wonder and discovery through my students, many of whom were experiencing the Headlands for the first time.
I carry that curiosity and connection to the natural world with me daily, and delight in the little moments of discovery as I walk my dog in our neighborhood, spot birds of prey in flight while on road trips, or hear the thrum of hummingbirds as they buzz by in our backyard.
Where does your love for nature come from?
It stems from a steady unfolding of experiences throughout my life: Sitting for hours on the beach, mesmerized by the sound of the waves and glint of sunlight on the water. Picking buckets and buckets of cherries, and devouring the fruits of our labor underneath the shade of the trees. Resting on sun-baked granite after plunging into icy cold lakes. Catching meteor showers in the night sky…
How does caring for nature—humans included—show up in your work right now?
It’s an essential part of my work at Kitchen Table Advisors where we are helping to build equitable and resilient regional food systems. We prioritize supporting farmers and ranchers who are thoughtfully stewarding the land for future generations, and work to ensure that they—as business owners and community leaders—are thriving. Since our founding 13 years ago, we have focused on listening and learning from our clients, as they know best what they need in order to thrive. Our programs help them build their skills and support system, so that they can be well-resourced.
In what ways does nature support you in your systems change efforts?
An important daily practice is a morning run with our pup, Ike, which gives me a chance to ground myself and prepare for the day ahead. I especially love seeing the changes in the light as we move through the seasons.
I also think a lot about what the natural world can teach us as an organization. Our work at KTA is about supporting farmers and ranchers who are deeply connected to the environment. We try to build our cadences of support for both our clients and the organization around the growing seasons.
For example, spending time in the winter to slow down, reflect on the past season and take stock of what needs to be planted and prepped for the coming season. Or using the spring to assess what lies ahead and any potential shifts to the plan, so that we can have a successful season.
The concept of adaptation also informs how we do our work at KTA. It’s important that we remain nimble and responsive to what is happening around us and to what our farmers & ranchers are lifting up as resources and opportunities.
What advice do you have for other changemakers in these times when it feels like we’re going backwards instead of forward?
Remain grounded in your purpose. Find others whose purpose aligns with yours and tend to that beloved community, because we are not meant to do this work alone. Hold space to grieve together, because what we’re experiencing individually & collectively is heartbreaking. Don’t forget to relish in the joy, because that is still present too. Nurture your creativity and help envision a different future ahead for us.
Take the time to rest, and do it regularly. As someone who orients to service and care for others, this has been one of the hardest and most important lessons in my adult life. I’ve struggled to give myself permission to slow down, because there is always something that could be tended to. But I have slowly been able to shift my own mindset and recognize that when I’m feeling stretched or stressed, I can’t offer the best support to my community. Rest can look like many things, so it’s also about understanding what is restorative to you and prioritizing that in your life.
What’s giving you hope these days?
Our farmers and ranchers at KTA who bring such immense wisdom and powerful ideas and examples for how we can live in ways that care for the whole community.
I have especially loved seeing & supporting the evolution of the Fondo Solidario, a farmer-governed revolving loan fund that emerged from conversations that a group of our Latina farmers were having around shared challenges in accessing flexible capital. In its pilot phase, they helped deploy $193,500 in loans with 0% interest over a period of 3 years. Now in its second phase of development, they deploy both emergency loans up to $10K as well as operating loans up to $35K, recognizing that businesses may need different types of capital in order to grow.
When our farmers and ranchers have governance and power in their market channels, capital access and land resources, they can better steward these resources and thoughtfully channel them into ways that build up our communities. The first step in getting there is to listen to our farmers and then see how we can help them bring those ideas into being.
Is there a more-than-human being you feel a special connection with?
The moon! I love it! It is a luminary that offers potent energy in all its phases and reminds me to move through the world with grace. Even when I can’t see the moon—whether due to cloud cover or because it’s in a shadow phase—I still can feel its pull when I look at the changing tides. It also just feels like a daily dose of magic. I don’t really know how else to explain it, but I just love it. 🌱
Pei-Yee Recommends…
✨ The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck
🥦 Roaming my local farmers market each Sunday to stock up for the week ahead
🍞 Baking experiments with heirloom flour grown and milled by Farmer Mai
To learn more about Kitchen Table Advisors and support their work, visit their website.
Photo Credit: Sumi Kim