Staff Members
Nicole Fabela (she/her)
Community Engagement Manager
Yakama, Lummi, Puyallup, Hawaiian, and Mexican American
Raised by her parents on the Yakama Nation Reservation, Nicole is a wife and mother of four unschooled children. She has a degree in early childhood education with a special education (SPED) certification. Nicole believes every person is born sacred, whole, and sovereign. She views every life as a masterpiece and each individual as the artist of their own life. As a matriarch, she strives to provide a home that serves as the heart-center for her family.
Nicole is passionate about the reclamation of parenthood. Parents and children are meant to learn and grow together, a right historically denied to Indigenous people. She helps families access resources, support, community, and culture, empowering parents to rewrite the story and reclaim their role as their child’s first and forever teacher. Nicole seeks creative ways to help individuals learn about the rhythms of the natural world, holding space as they take the first steps towards healing the wounds of generational trauma.
Lena Juliana Pierre (she/her)
Healing and Embodiment Advocate
Afrocarribean of West Africa and Taino/Arawak
Lena embodies a diversified background in Indigenous practices and ancestral connection. Raised in a matriarchal home, most of her primary knowledge of service and healing was ingrained in her throughout childhood. A mother of two, she finds inspiration in the opportunity to share wisdom and learn everyday as a steward of her children.
She is deeply passionate about full spectrum doula work that helps bring embodied healing to birthing people. She has served over 100 womb-carriers using many Indigenous and modern practices and modalities. As a physical, emotional, and spiritual spaceholder, Lena advocates conscious effort to build a relationship with one’s lineage in order to gain a deeper understanding of oneself and one’s place in the world.
Chestina “Ches” Salinas (she/her)
Community Care Coordinator
Yakama, Warm Springs, Chicana
Chestina is a naturally happy and caring person who brings healing energy to everyone she encounters. Raised on the Yakama Nation Reservation by her parents, she is the oldest daughter and granddaughter, a role she carries with great pride. She is a wife, auntie, and mother to one son. She shares a deeply healing relationship with her son’s birth mom. Together, they have built a beautiful, blended family rooted in respect, growth, and love. Her journey through motherhood has been defined by overcoming challenges and obstacles as she learned to navigate the complexities of the foster care system. Empowered by her lived experience, Ches has emerged as an informed, knowledgeable advocate for others.
Ches has a background in early childhood development, with a certificate in special education and social work. She served her tribal community for 17 years supporting early learners, providing mental health services, harm reduction, and MAT (medication-assisted treatment) services. She brings good energy, creativity, and strong cultural ties to her role as care coordinator. Her goal is to provide deep community connections and support systems that help families heal and grow.
Magaly Solis (she/her)
Director of Operations and Strategy
Mestiza
Magaly Solis is a bilingual leader, daughter of immigrants, and longtime advocate for immigrant and underserved communities. She brings over a decade of experience in nonprofit leadership, including serving as executive director of an organization supporting Latine and immigrant families in the Yakima Valley.
Her work is deeply personal. As a Latina immigrant and former DACA recipient, Magaly understands the barriers many families face and is committed to helping build pathways to stability, opportunity, and belonging. She cares about creating spaces where people feel seen, supported, and treated with dignity.
Magaly is known for her thoughtful and grounded leadership, bringing both care and accountability to the way she works with people and systems. At the heart of her work is a commitment to community, dignity, and creating a better future for the next generation. Outside of her work, Magaly prioritizes rest, reflection, and time with loved ones as essential to sustaining her leadership and well-being.
Leslie “Muxiis” Swan (she/her)
Rematriation Advocate, Founding Staff Member
Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and Chippewa Cree
Leslie grew up in White Swan at the base of the Cascade Mountains. She is a mother of five and has one grandchild. Raised in the traditional Yakama way of life since birth, she continues to deepen her understanding of Yakama teachings as a cultural and language apprentice. She is an essential connection point to Yakama ways for both clients and staff.
As a rematriation advocate at Ttáwax̲t, Leslie instills hope and healing in the community by creating ways for families to reclaim who they are as Native people. Her gentle guidance seeks to activate the deep knowledge within. She believes that connection to Creator, Mother Earth, traditional foods and medicines, and language revitalization will heal the damages done by historical trauma.
Jessica “Jess” Whitehawk (she/her)
Wah-Kan-Je-Winga (Good Thunder Woman)
Founding Executive Director
Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and Santee Sioux
Jessica has three grown children and one grandson. Her journey to get where she is has been varied and full of diversions and wisdom-gaining. She became a mother very young and left high school with a GED. Through perseverance, she chose to pursue higher education after that in order to forge a future for her family as a first generation college student. In time, she earned a master’s degree in Public Health Services from the University of Washington while simultaneously breaking barriers, healing, and raising her three children.
When she was fresh out of graduate school, Jessica observed the high rates of maternal and infant mortality in Native populations. Her experience with community data collection, evaluation, and needs assessments led her to initiate an assessment of maternal and child health care as experienced by Indigenous people living on and near the Yakama Nation Reservation. The findings of this assessment led to the creation of Ttáwax̲t Birth Justice Center. Jessica believes all of the solutions for thriving communities are carried within our Indigenous peoples. She has been serving Indigenous families for over 30 years of her life and has a passion for creating new pathways to overcome systems of oppression. She strives to lead an organization that is rooted in restoration, justice, and repair from the impacts of colonialism.
Lina Garcia (she/her)
Birth Center and Workforce Development Director
Xicana Indígena/Caxcan
Lina Garcia is a licensed midwife, birth center founder, and longtime organizer rooted in birth justice, reproductive justice, and community power. She brings fifteen years of experience in maternal health and midwifery, following over a decade of grassroots organizing. For more than ten years, Lina has cared for families in the Mexico/U.S. borderlands, where birth, migration, culture, and family life are deeply connected.
Lina’s work focuses on building culturally rooted models of care that honor families, support birth workers, and support community-led solutions. She is the Co-Founder of Luna Tierra Casa de Partos, the first Mexican and Xicana-run and owned birth center in El Paso, Texas, and co-founder of the Integrated Indigenous Medicine Collective in British Columbia. Across her work, Lina is passionate about building birth centers and care systems that are grounded, relational, and accountable to the families they serve. She believes birth work is community work, and that birth centers can create pathways toward healing, justice, and self-determination.
Board Members
Dionna Bennett (she/her)
Board vice chair
Grand Ronde, Yakama
Dionna is of this land, born and raised on the Yakama Indian Reservation. She is a proud mother of two children, and she has also had a hand in raising many others. She is married to an amazing tattoo artist. Her passion for my community is embedded in her soul.
She started out teaching at Head Start, which led her to changing her educational goal to social work. She earned her Bachelor of Social Work from Heritage University. She finds joy in reading, running, and baking. Her mom, Carmanita (a Ttáwax̲t cofounder and former executive director of Campbell Farms) would always say, “When you are called to serve, there is no other more qualified than you because God qualifies your call.” Dionna feels very fortunate to work alongside her mother as the program director of Campbell Farms for many years. After her mother’s untimely passing, Dionna stepped into the role of executive director. For her, it is an honor to serve her community.
Shelby Clark (she/her)
Board Secretary
Yakama
Shelby grew up in White Swan where she saw people struggle with a litany of chronic, serious, and often life-threatening health issues. Inspired by her relatives who pursued their education and served in the military, Shelby joined in high school and became a critical care flight nurse. Afterward, she attended Yakima Valley College and set her sights on pursuing higher education.
Shelby is the first Native American graduate of Heritage University’s Bachelor of Nursing program. She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Washington in 2022. Inspired by her family’s legacy in nursing and her experience in Indian Health Service facilities, she is passionate about improving public health through systems and policy change.
Dila Perera (she/her)
Board treasurer
Sri Lankan American
Dila is the executive director at Open Arms Perinatal Services. Dila has worked in public health and advocacy locally and internationally, including time spent as a doula for Open Arms.
She earned both a Master of Public Health and a Master of Social Work at the University of Washington, after starting her career as a health educator at 19. She went on to spend 12 years helping to build and manage innovative and complex programs designed to improve the health of vulnerable populations, including mothers, children, families, and people living with or affected by HIV. Dila has managed several large-scale federally funded interventions but believes that small organizations, even when working with minimal resources, are still the most effective at creating lasting and transformational change.
She has been a program manager, a grantmaker, a board member, and a trainer. However, Dila considers working with pregnant people — before birth, during birth, and supporting new mothers and infants — to be the most rewarding work she has ever done.
Cindy Gamble (she/her)
Board chair
Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, Kaax’oos.hittaan (Man’s Foot Clan.)
Cindy, MPH, CLC, has worked to support the health of women, birthing people, and children and families as a childbirth educator and Tribal Health Director in Alaska and Washington State. She is a school family life educator, domestic violence and intimate partner violence prevention advocate. Currently Cindy works as a Tribal Community Health Consultant with the American Indian Health Commission (AIHC) as lead for their maternal infant health and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program projects. She represents the AIHC on a variety of state agency committees and work groups including the WA State Maternal Mortality Review Panel. Cindy was also past president of Nutrition First.
Cindy believes that the health and strength of Native families and communities begins with healthy mothers and babies, and integrating the wisdom and ways of our elders and ancestors into our daily lives. Cindy and husband, Jerry, have three adult children and five grandchildren.
