Community is Medicine.
Our Teams
Juice Crew
We source surplus produce and superfoods from farms, backyards, food banks, businesses, and food distributors and process it into healthy juice and smoothies for the unhoused and others in need of nutritional support. The pulp from this goes into our compost and soil production, which we get back out to our farmers and medicine cultivators. This ritual honors the Earth’s bounty and humanity in a sacred loop.
Alternative Detox & Support
Addiction is rampant in our society and specifically in the communities in which we work. We support people to find holistic and ancestral pathways to liberate themselves from destructive cycles that address the root causes of why people use. We believe that a healthy movement comes from healthy leadership. This work is done in collaboration with Esphera’s, Solestial Church project.
Movement Building & Consulting
We build grassroots campaigns and coalitions that strategize and create solutions to systemic issues such as homelessness, addiction and ecological devastation.
Global Marketplace
Makers and creators from our local and global communities contribute handcrafted products from jewelry, clothing, natural remedies, ancestral healing tools, art, instruments and more. A portion of the proceeds from each sale goes to support the creators as well as funding our on the ground work.
We provide in person and online classes around topics such as health and nutrition, spirituality, wellness, movement history, and social and ecological justice.
Popular Education
XOCHITL BERNADETTE MORENO
She is Co-founder of Esphera, which creates liberation through food, medicine, and media and is the umbrella of Essential Food and Medicine, Solestial Church, and Earth Amplified.
Xochitl is a ceremonialist, activist, media maker and healer dedicated to the wellness of the planet and its people.For the past ten years she has been a co-producer and host for 94.1FM KPFA Pacifica Radio’s La Onda Bajita, the longest running Chican@/Xican@ radio show in the country. She also co-founded The Outsider News, a Bay Area independent media company. In addition to her media work she has spent the past 15 years bringing healing to the community through Thai Bodywork, Herbalism, Ayurvedic Medicine and Curanderismo and other Ancestral healing practices.
ASHEL SEASUNZ ELDRIDGE
MA. Transpersonal Psychology, Chicago born residing in Oakland, CA. of West African/Blackfoot ancestry, AshEL has worked with the Alliance for Climate Education, been a Green For All Fellow, a Climate Justice, Race, and Activism instructor at San Francisco State University, and taught conflict resolution skills with Soul Shoppe. He is Co-founder of Esphera, which creates liberation through food, medicine, and media and is the umbrella of Essential Food and Medicine, Solestial Church, and Earth Amplified.
He has practiced various shamanic healing traditions since 2005, including Dagrara divination, Japanese spiritual purification (sukyomahikari.org), and Galactic Language Activation/soul cleansing via Tian Gong. His music groups include hip hop based RebelWise, Sage & Cedar, and Dogon Lights. ashelseasunz.com
DANIELLE EPIFANI
Food Recovery
Danielle is a first generation Polynesian American residing on the traditional lands of the Lisjan Ohlone. She joined EFAM as a volunteer in 2021 and serves as our Food Recovery Manager, collecting, processing, and distributing food to the community. As a climate activist, she draws inspiration from the diversity of people she interacts with at EFAM who bring their full, and authentic selves in all that they do for the collective well being.
Hawaiian Community Leader, Myron Pinky Thompson once said, You need to know the path that you are going on and why you are going there. You need to define the values that will guide you on that path, and that will navigate you on your journey not only to Tahiti, but through your lives. You need to define your community, and community is never about what separates you from each other, your race, or your culture, it’s about what binds you together.
For Polynesians, the great vaka moana or open ocean voyaging canoe is like our home in space. Everyone works together to care for the vaka and one another in charting their future on the great ocean highway. On sunny days you’ll find Danielle and her dog Coco out coursing the waves of the East Bay.
Herbalism
Our earth provides us with solutions to the challenges we face in our bodies and minds. The herbs come from local growers and community farms and our team of skilled medicine makers utilize this abundance to create tinctures, teas, salves, essences, sprays and more to put the tools for healing directly into the hands of those in need. Our Apothecary is located in West Oakland.
Compost and Soil
The pulp from juicing provides great vermiculture and soil-building food. This partnership with the microbes and mycelium networks allow us to strengthen the soil-food-web in our communities.
Alliances.
Healing Clinic Collective
Dhyana Center
Urban Tilth
People's Community Medics
Punks with Lunch
KPFA Pacifica 94.1 FM
Electric Smoothie lab
APTP
Ancestral Apothecary
3rd Eye Soul Kitchen
Collaborators.
Homefulness
Gill Tract Farm
Soulfower Farms
Spiral Gardens
Happy Boy farms
Phat Beets
Canticle Farms
Mushroom Farm
Temple of Earth Apothecary
Deep Medicine Circle
Berkeley Food Network
Urban Adamah
Souper Saucers
Auntie Francis: Self-help Hunger Program
Partners.
Solestial Church
Earth Amplified
Foodz
O2AA
ECAP Emeryville Citizens Assistance Program
Nor Cal Resilience Network
Planting Justice
Mandela Foods
OMNI
P.L.A.C.E.
Audiopharmacy