ResiliencY Coordinators

Renee Ananda and Aim Me Smiley live in Perry County Indiana and are well known in the community as the music duo, Troubadours of Divine Bliss, caretakers of Way of the Heart Woods Nature Sanctuary & Retreat, as longtime conservation advocates and community builders. As organizers of the Mighty Kindness Hoot festivals, they strengthened the skills of empowering community connection for all that is kind for the planet and its inhabitants. Renee and Aim Me have hearts for nurturing kindness in community and allowing the jewel of the southern Indiana forests and natural world to flourish for generations to come.

Shikha Bhattacharyya is a pharmacist and an environmental activist who has found her life’s mission in educating local businesses and communities about trash and its impacts on human life. She complements her passion towards environmental sustainability endeavors through a non-profit organization, reTHink, Inc., committed to creating a cleaner and greener future. Shikha works part-time at a local pharmacy and is a strong believer that human health is directly related to the health of our environment. Her organization, reTHink, Inc. has started a plastic collection and up-cycling program in Terre Haute inspired by precious plastics movement. reTHink HQ also hosts a community zero-waste shop and collection place for Terracycle. reTHink's several other programs include composting, six community gardens, cooking classes, and several other education and empowerment classes for area youth.

Shikha grew up in India and has made USA her home since 2000. She lives in Terre Haute, IN since 2011 with her husband and two sons, Ahan and Ayush. Her educational background includes a Ph.D. in Biomedical Studies from Baylor University, a Masters in Biochemical Engineering and an undergraduate in Pharmacy.

Jason Donati has been the Stormwater and Recycling Educator for the Muncie Sanitary District and Stormwater Management Department in Muncie and Delaware County since 2009. Jason was born and raised in Delaware County and returned home to Muncie in 2007 after serving two years in AmeriCorps and living for 6 years in Buffalo, New York where he helped coordinate a youth employment program that converted vacant lots into urban gardens addressing food insecurity on Buffalo's Westside. He has helped lead the Annual Delaware County White River Cleanup for the last 11 years and hosts an annual week-long youth camp called Camp Prairie Creek that educates over 100+ youth about environmental stewardship. He was elected to the Muncie Community School Board in 2016 and serves as the President of the Muncie Urban Forestry Committee, board member of the Cardinal Greenway, the Muncie Land Bank, Bike Muncie, the Emergency Management Advisory Council, and a former board President of Muncie-Delaware Clean and Beautiful. Jason is a founding member and co-facilitator of R.A.C.E. Muncie (Reconciliation Achieved through Community Engagement), a group that focuses on bringing people together. Jason resides in downtown Muncie with his wife Sasha and their four children.

Kathryn Lisinicchia began her career designing and implementing recycling programs for large-scale office buildings in downtown Chicago. She returned to her home state of Indiana and transitioned into education, teaching at the high school and post-secondary level. Most recently she worked with a non-profit engaging and educating communities about the benefits of utility scale solar. Kathryn volunteers with a number of community and environmental organizations working to improve quality of life through environmental action. As chair for the Mayor’s Advisory Council on Environmental Stewardship in Huntington, she was integral in establishing the city’s arboretum and is an Indiana Community Tree Steward. Desiring to be a good steward of her family’s farm, she has completed certifications in permaculture design and soil microbiology. She is a long time yoga practitioner, enjoys bike riding, being outdoors and spending time with her husband Anthony and their two sons.

Kathy Sipple is the host of 219 GreenConnect environmental podcast, an author, a marketing consultant and founder of CoThrive Timebank. She is an Indiana Master Naturalist, a Master Recycler & Composter, and an Indiana Master Watershed Steward. She attended Climate Reality Leadership training with Al Gore in 2019 and has also trained to be a facilitator for Project Drawdown. She earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Kathy has volunteered with the Pachamama Alliance since 2017 and is also involved with many environmental projects in Northwest Indiana. She lives in Valparaiso, Indiana with her husband John and their black Labrador rescue dog, Bodhi. She enjoys gardening, learning about permaculture and hiking at the Indiana Dunes and other nearby natural areas.

James Speth from the Yale School of Forestry said in the forward for the 2007 Toward A New Consciousness: Values To Sustain Human And Natural Communities, “Many of our deepest thinkers and many of those most familiar with the scale of the challenges we face have concluded that the changes needed to sustain human and natural communities can only be achieved in the context of the rise of a new consciousness. For some, it is a spiritual awakening – a transformation of the human heart. For others, it is a more intellectual process of coming to see the world anew and deeply embracing the emerging ethic of the environment and the old ethic of what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself. But for all, it involves major cultural change and a reorientation of what society values and prizes most highly.”

I want to help with that culture change. Person by person. City by City. So Indiana can be proud of its leadership in climate action. I was a professor of Environmental Education at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College and now I’m an environmental science teacher at the Elkhart Academy which is an alternative high school that is “committed to serving all students by providing an environment where students will learn to navigate life, find their purpose, and become productive members of our community.” I am politically active, I motivate and provoke, I’m a husband and father and someone who wants to create an environmentally literate and responsible society.

Gowri Sundaram is from India and has a Master’s degree in Biotechnology. She chairs the mentoring committee for the US Compost Council Young Professionals Group, believing soil is a major climate player solution due to its carbon storage capacity. Gowri teaches Compost Operator Training Courses by the US Composting Council Research and Education Foundation. In her spare time, she does outreach to schools and community about composting. She volunteers with Food Rescue US diverting food waste going to landfills, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas. In addition, she is a Divisional Head Judge for First LEGO League Robotics. She lives in Fort Wayne where she works at A&L Great Lakes Laboratories; her family that includes two children, whom Gowri believes are the game changers with it comes to climate solutions.

Grace is an activist and student, born and raised in Gary, a city that has experienced poor air and water quality for roughly 90 years. Due to the region's long history of pollution, deforestation, poverty, and lack of access to quality education, she made it her mission to protect and restore the remaining natural spaces in her area, and help educate her community on their natural ecosystems.

Prior to joining the ECI team, Grace worked in lawn care, customer service, fork lift driving and metal recycling. She also studied horticulture at a local greenhouse, and had the opportunity to perform wetland restoration the summer of 2023. Grace is excited to pursue community outreach and lobbying in 2024. She won't let her classes slow her down or prevent her from pushing for direly needed environmental change and protection.

Alison Zajdel grew up in Richmond, IN and returned after college to work for a local nonprofit. After a 16 year stint with Cope Environmental Center, Alison started her own small business as a nonprofit contractor and currently helps local organizations with fundraising, board development, grant proposal writing, and strategic planning. However, she spends most of her time working with Earth Charter Indiana as a Resiliency Coordinator with a focus on local climate action and with Stamm Koechlein Family Foundation as their Philanthropy Advocate. Over the past 7 years, Richmond has completed a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the Hoosier Resilience Index. In 2020, Alison worked with a group of teens to pass a Youth Climate Resolution which was followed by a citywide unanimously-passed Climate Action Plan in 2021. The Environmental Sustainability Commission on which Alison serves is responsible for leading the city through this plan which involves both mitigation and resiliency measures. Alison volunteers for a variety of organizations in Richmond and enjoys cooking, spending time outside, and being lazy with her two kids, husband, and dog Jake.

Born and raised in Sellersburg, Indiana, Ash has spent her life exploring the areas of Kentuckiana. Growing up, their dad always made sure to immerse her and her sister in nature, so they were always out exploring the wonders of our world around us and made her understand that all life is precious and must be protected.

Over two years, her and her partner (Matt) had moved houses, became members of the Indiana Native Plant Society and Homegrown National Park, and their suburban property is now certified by the INPS and the National Wildlife Federation for being a wildlife habitat.

The passing of her father helped push her to pursue her passion and advocate on more levels than before. Ash actively volunteers in the community at events like Pollinator Day and local shelters, and is currently assisting another community member (Heather Ratchford) on her mission to get Speed Park in Sellersburg back in shape by gardening, cleaning up the park, and setting up volunteer events. Ash recently left her long career in patient advocacy, insurance, and case management to pursue her dreams in native gardening and environmental advocacy. She is now able to focus on her mission with ECI and start her journey working for Peacock Valley Nursery and Farm, located in New Albany, IN. The owner (Laura Lewis) has been wonderful, and working with them has exposed Ash to a lot of knowledge giving her more of a drive to help maintain this beautiful state that we all reside in.

Being a native plant and biodiversity advocate, her mission is to help spread awareness of the importance of biodiversity, how native plant landscapes are a key to survival, how they are intertwined with climate change, and what we can do from our own backyards to fight it.

With our combined skills and drive we, and the community, can overcome the hardships we are facing and continue to progress in exploring, enjoying and protecting the Earth, right here from our Hoosier State.