Jocelyn Boreta
Co-founder and Executive Director. The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Jocelyn Boreta is a community organizer, herbalist and the granddaughter of an Indigenous Farmworker. She is committed to cultivating health equity through culturally centered care. Before co-founding The Botanical Bus, Jocelyn organized weekly bilingual, bicultural wellness workshops with Cultivando para Salud at LandPaths Bayer Farm and worked as a clinical herbalist at Farmacopia for four years. Her activism has roots in 10-years working as Program Director of the Global Exchange Fair Trade Stores. Jocelyn holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Anthropology from University of California Santa Barbara and certification in herbalism from the California School of Herbal Studies. She believes that “Herbalism is activism. It shows us that we are connected to the earth, that we know how to heal ourselves, our families and our communities with the plants that grow around us.”
Yatziry Galvan
Program Coordinator, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Yatziry Galvan has been actively working for non-profit organizations in Northern Sonoma County after her graduation from Sonoma State University in 2019. Her dedication to working with the Latine and under-served communities derived from the challenges that both she and her parents faced as first-generation immigrants in this country. She is excited to work with like-minded individuals who have a passion for and are committed to promoting equitable access to health services and alternative medicine in their communities.
Madalyn Sarena Peratoner Berg
Lead Practitioner and Clinical Herbalism Program Coordinator
Madalyn Berg (she/ella) is a traditional energetic herbalist, educator, and visual artist. As a bilingual herbalist of mixed Colombian and Mediterranean descent, working for the Bus feels like a homecoming. With folk healers on both sides of her family, she sees this work as a continuation of the work of her ancestors. Madalyn has been an educator since 2009, an herbalist since 2011, and in clinical practice since 2016. karyn sanders and Sarah Holmes of Blue Otter School of Herbal Medicine are her teachers and she practices in their lineage. Outside of her work for the Bus you can find Madalyn in private practice at the Community Medicine Cabinet, which she founded in 2014.
Daniela Myers-Guzmán de la Campa
Wellness Workshop Program Coordinator
Daniela Myers-Guzmán de la Campa is a sister, a daughter, an herbalist, an artist, a gardener, an activist, and a tender of people and plants. Raised in a bi-cultural household, she grew up deeply connected to her Mexican roots. Her love for our plant kin is as old as she is. It is with deep gratitude and passion that Daniela works as an herbalist and workshop coordinator with the Botanical Bus. She also tends to the medicinal plant garden & farm at the California School of Herbal Studies, where she facilitates the garden apprenticeship; works behind the scenes at Soft Medicine Sanctuary, supporting herb supply and concocting blends; and is the co-creator of the Herbal Care•Van. She is committed to a life supporting community, uplifting wellness, celebrating our roots, and working in reciprocity.
María “LuLu” de Lourdes Pérez Centurión
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
María “LuLu” de Lourdes Pérez Centurión was born in Uruapan del Progreso Michoacan, Mexico. She is proud of her Purhepechas and Veracruzanas roots with Oaxacan embers. Maria is a promotora de salud (community health worker), birth doula and massage therapist. She has studied and practiced herbal medicine for over 20-years. Her practice includes specialization in indigestion; nervous tension; infant cranial therapy; womb and postpartum care.
Juliana Jimenez
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Juliana Jimenez joins The Botanical Bus as a Promotora de Salud, with deep intergenerational knowledge and a desire to empower her community. Her personal testimony of the disproportionate impact of Type II diabetes in her home town and Indigenous community, is powerful and her leadership of our diabetes support group invaluable. Juliana’s special interest in medicinal plants was born with her grandfather in a rural town of Oaxaca, MX, where she spent the first 21 years of her life. Her grandfather was well known for his medicinal herb practice and people sought him out to heal. From an early age she was immersed in learning about plants, teas and home remedies that her mother used on the recommendation of her grandfather to care for her family.
Norma Ricos Saavedra
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Norma Ricos Saavedra is a Promotora de Salud who is deeply dedicated to promoting the benefits of herbal medicine in her community. Norma immigrated to Sonoma County 21 years ago from Mexico City, Mexico. Her passion for herbal medicine stems from the knowledge that her great grandmother and mother shared with her as a young girl. Norma depicts a time when she lived in “un cacho de terreno baldío” or a piece of wasteland with her great grandmother. Oftentimes her great grandmother, Mama Le, would ask her to bring her “un cacho de una planta” which she would use for aches and pains like headaches, knee pains, upset stomachs amongst other things. To this day Norma is proud to carry with her the knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation in her family. She is also very happy to share the love of medicinal plants with her husband who carries his own knowledge and appreciation for herbal medicine. Norma hopes to continue sharing her knowledge and experiences with her community to help others find alternative ways to reach their highest level of health through the use of medicinal plants. Norma strongly believes that although medicinal plants grow gradually and it’s benefits take time to take effect, one cannot deny the extraordinary power of medicinal plants.
Samantha Pérez
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Samantha Pérez is mom, daughter to LuLu and community health educator. Samantha is from Mexico and is passionate about connecting with nature. Her focus is self-sustenance based on reducing our environmental impact and learning from the cycles and rhythms of Mother Earth. She specializes in DIY body products: watch for her workshops on making your own shampoo, deodorant, laundry detergent, makeup and more.
Maria Rivera
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Maria Rivera is a Parent Educator at CPI, Mind-Body Medicine Facilitator, Certified in Imagine You Activity and Reiki Practitioner. Maria’s commitment to this work is rooted in a desire to contribute, to build resilience in her community and to the well-being of all. María facilitates mind body skills groups and workshops, in these groups you learn and practice a variety of specific skills that help change the way you deal with stress, illness and life. Maria draws inspiration from her family and from being in contact and feeling connected to Mother Nature.
Valeria Duffe Unanue
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Valeria Duffe Unanue, born in Santiago de Chile and raised in her early childhood in the countryside, influenced her decisions and interests today.
By profession, she is a Designer and deeply attracted to spirituality and human psychology, after resigning from her "day job" in 2011, she became certified as a Medical Biomagnetism therapist and is dedicated to teaching art and craft workshops in her Chilean community. She is currently studying mindfulness, positive psychology, emotional management, and a guide as an art therapist, in order to shape art therapy workshops, a tool or activity that promotes mental/emotional and spiritual health. Valeria shares with us that for her, “contact with nature has always facilitated the path of self-knowledge and another way of representing it is by making art, which is our own nature.” Something that Valeria enjoys doing in her free time is looking for treasures in second-hand stores. She finds this activity fascinating and it awakens her creativity.
María facilitates mind body skills groups and workshops, in these groups you learn and practice a variety of specific skills that help change the way you deal with stress, illness and life. Maria draws inspiration from her family and from being in contact and feeling connected to Mother Nature.
Nayabei Barretto
Promotora, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Nayabei Barretto, who goes by Naya, is a nurse practitioner and advocate of lifestyle changes to promote long healthy living. Naya was born in Oaxaca City in Mexico where she lived for 15 years. She cherishes her experience growing up in this ancient city with its vibrant traditions in food, herbal medicine and art. Before becoming a nurse practitioner, Naya worked as a registered nurse in our local Sonoma County public health department providing education and support to first time moms and their families. She now practices providing diabetes and weight loss management as well as aesthetic treatments. She is passionate about the benefits of plant based nutrition and medicinal mushrooms.
Katherine Ann Leilani Tuider
Development Director, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Katherine Ann Leilani Tuider is an Executive Consultant to nonprofits and businesses in the areas of development, financial management, grant writing, recruiting, long-term planning, program design, monitoring and evaluation, and project management. The common thread throughout her multifaceted career has been social justice. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic, she created a network of health promotoras (Community Health Advocates) so that women in rural villages could teach others how to prevent and treat disease, cook nutritious food and have confident conversations about health. Her time in the Dominican Republic peaked her interest in economic development, which led to a career as an international recruiter, during which she sourced teams for multimillion-dollar international projects focused on environmental and economic sustainability. In 2013, she decided to further her education in economics, so she completed her MBA in Paris. The following year she moved back to her childhood home of Hawaii to launch Honolulu Biennial Foundation (HBF), which she helped build to become Hawaii’s largest contemporary art festival. As the Executive Director (HBF), she was responsible for all daily operations of the nonprofit, including fundraising, financial oversight, recruiting and empowering a diverse staff, program monitoring and evaluation and project management. Katherine is an avid gardener, cook and an herbalist-in-training at the California School of Herbal Studies. She received her BA from University of Pennsylvania in Health and Societies (Public Health) and an MBA in Arts and Cultural Management from Paris School of Business/ Institut d’études supérieures des arts.
Angeles Quiñones
Promotora Program Director, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Angeles Quiñones is a certified social worker and Promotora de Salud, dedicated to building community health that is connected to the land. She moved to Santa Rosa in 2004 from Torreón Coahuila, Mexico, where from an early age she learned to heal herself, her friends and family with the plants growing around her. In 2014 with Land Path’s Bayer Farm, she organized Farming for Health, a bilingual community group that gathers weekly to learn and share recipes and remedies for health from the garden. She is a certified YWCA domestic violence counselor and worked with the Salvation Army for three years connecting immigrant families to health services. The first time she visited Land Paths Bayer Farm in Roseland, Santa Rosa, she cried at the taste of a tomato off the vine. “It tasted like home.” Angeles is passionate about connecting people across generations, to the nourishment of the community garden found in nutrition, herbal medicine and friendship.
Lily Mazzarella, MS, CNS
Co-Founder, The Botanical Bus: Bilingual Mobile Herb Clinic
Lily Mazzarella, MS, CNS, is an herbalist, nutritionist and owner of Farmacopia in Santa Rosa, an apothecary and integrative medical practice. Lily’s journey for healing her own complex health challenges sparked an interest in herbal medicine, nutrition, and non-conventional modalities of healing. She holds a BA in English literature from Wesleyan University, and a Masters of Science in Herbal Medicine from Maryland University of Integrative Health. In between the two, she pursued multiple trainings, including 7Song’s Northeast School of Botanical Medicine. She has been on the faculty at the California School of Herbal Studies since 2006, and serves as The Ceres Community Project Expert Advisor on herbal medicine. During the urban wildfires of October 2017, she utilized the infrastructure of Farmacopia to mobilize dozens of volunteers and allocate thousands of dollars in resources to provide easily accessed holistic care to her community of Santa Rosa.