Food sovereignty & community care
Food security, pantry stewardship, and dignified mutual aid.
Stewardship & transparency
Impact & Invest
Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead Co. · 501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 33-4417542
Healing needs places — and places need sustained care. We bring food sovereignty, somatic education, youth and family care, sacred ceremony, and community practice together in Southwest Atlanta. Funding helps hold both the work and the people who make it possible.
2025 verified founding outcomes
- People served
- 180
- Known community support
- $12,694.87
- Mobilized for Feed the Family
- $5,204
- Unique Zeffy supporters
- 83
A Southwest Atlanta home base was secured. The founding work responded to disrupted EBT/SNAP access, provided emergency food support, and began an ongoing free pantry and community garden.
These are founder-approved historical report figures, not newly audited results or claims about current capacity.
One combined goal · 2026
$250,000 for full funding.
This is one full-funding goal encompassing expansion, programs, ongoing bills, fair compensation, infrastructure, operations, and sustainability — not separate Phase 2 and operating requests. These allocations are a funding plan, not funds already raised or spent.
- Food security & pantry
- $85,000
- Facilitator compensation & workforce development
- $75,000
- Commons & infrastructure
- $50,000
- Programming & gatherings
- $25,000
- Operations & sustainability
- $15,000
Longer-term 2028 targets — not achieved outcomes
With full ecosystem funding, the existing vision projects:
- Serving 1,000+ community members annually
- Distributing $100k+ in direct support (food, stipends, scholarships)
- Training 50+ community leaders and practitioners
- Growing food on 2+ acres
- Operating year-round programming across all seven pathways
- Creating sustainable livelihoods for facilitators and organizers
How to read the numbers
The 2025 report reviews Zeffy campaign activity beginning in October 2025 plus two direct checks. Zeffy support of $5,694.87 and direct checks of $7,000 total $12,694.87 in known support. Campaign totals are funds raised, not actual expenditure allocations.
- Feed the Family
- $5,204
- Permanent Homestead / Housing Fund
- $6,852.88
- Help Me Found My Church
- $637.99
Zeffy recorded 83 unique supporters and 105 successful payments, including 33 recurring payments from 14 recurring supporters. Supporters and payments are different measures; the Zeffy count is not a count of all donors.
Spending was reported as 87% direct community service, 13% operations and infrastructure, and 0% administration and fundraising. These reported percentages are not inferred from campaign donations and are not converted here into expenditure dollar amounts. Founding-year labor was volunteer-powered; fair compensation is included in the 2026 plan.
Where your funding can align
Five alignment categories help us discuss fit across the existing seven programs. They are not new legal entities, accounts, or promises of restricted-fund eligibility.
Somatic healing & wellbeing
Nervous system education, embodied care, and community healing.
Youth, family & liberation education
Neuroaffirming learning, family care, and cultural rooting.
Arts, culture & sacred practice
Creative expression, storytelling, and culturally rooted ceremony. Restricted grants may exclude religious or ceremonial activity; discuss eligible scope before committing funds.
Community infrastructure & economic justice
Land stewardship, gathering spaces, fair compensation, and shared resources.
Governance & due diligence
Selenite & Sage is distinct from Make Shi(f)t Happen: the organizations share a philosophy, not finances. Selenite & Sage also serves as fiscal sponsor to Warrior Artists.
No determination letter, audited financial statements, or grant eligibility documentation is linked here. Request the materials needed for your review; confirm any restrictions and eligible activities together.
Read board and advisory information
community-led stewardship
Board of Directors
The Collective is guided by a Board of Directors committed to transparency, accountability, and community-rooted leadership.
Desireé B. Stephens
President, Founder
Operations, strategy, ecosystem coordination.
Founder of The Liberation Method™, somatic practitioner and liberation educator with a track record in building community infrastructure for embodied healing.
QuiAnna Ray (LadySpeech)
Vice President
Movement work, community care, cultural rooting, sacred ceremony.
Hoodoo Reverend and liberation-centered spiritual teacher. Decades of cultural and spiritual leadership, including Liberation Nights ATL.
Telania Smith
Treasurer
Financial stewardship, operations, accountability, neurodiverse-affirming practice.
Founder of Brain Bloom Consulting. Background in finance, nonprofit accountability, and operational stewardship rooted in neurodiversity wisdom.
Monique Johnson
Secretary
Community coordination, documentation, communication, food sovereignty.
Founder of Everything Empanadas. Community organizing, documentation, and communications work rooted in food sovereignty and care.
advisory council
- Kay Coughlinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jkcoughlin/
- Lindsay Renea Bentonhttps://theatredance.ua.edu/people/lindsay-renae-benton/
- Amy Brighthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-bright/
this structure ensures
- Community accountability
- Financial transparency
- Multi-generational leadership
- Shared decision-making
- Care-centered operations
Read existing partnership information
building together
Our Strategic Partners
The Healing Homestead Collective doesn't operate in isolation.
We are woven into a larger ecosystem of liberation-rooted organizations, practitioners, educators, and community leaders — all working toward collective thriving.
Our partnerships are rooted in shared values: liberation, community care, cultural affirmation, and transformational change.
Together, we are stronger.
LadySpeech
Hoodoo Reverend, movement work, sacred ceremony, and cultural rooting. QuiAnna Ray (LadySpeech) is Vice President of the Healing Homestead Board and leads our sacred programming, ritual, and community ceremonies.
Visit LadySpeechBrain Bloom Consulting
Neurodiverse-affirming consulting and community support. Telania Smith (Brain Bloom founder and Healing Homestead Treasurer) brings neurodiversity wisdom to our youth and family programming, ensuring our work honors all minds.
Visit Brain Bloom ConsultingWarrior Artists
Arts + leadership institute rooted in Southwest Atlanta. Founded by Tony M. Foster, Warrior Artists integrates creative expression, cultural rooting, and leadership development for young people. We collaborate on youth pathways and creative programming.
Parenting Decolonized
Liberation-centered parenting education led by Yolanda Williams. Partners in our "Parenting for Liberation" programming, bringing decolonized approaches to family healing and youth support.
Visit Parenting DecolonizedThrive University
Education and empowerment programming led by Jayson Smith. Thrive University partners in our youth and family education, bringing transformational learning approaches to our collective healing work.
Visit Thrive UniversityEverything Empanadas
Community food enterprise and nourishment rooted in care. Monique Johnson (Everything Empanadas founder and Healing Homestead Secretary) brings food sovereignty practices and entrepreneurship support to our economic justice work.
Visit Everything EmpanadasAre you a community organization or practitioner aligned with liberation work? We welcome partnerships.
Explore Partnership OpportunitiesHelp sustain the work
One-time gifts, sustaining support, grants, partnerships, in-kind contributions, and volunteer care can each have a place. Begin with the conversation that fits your capacity.
Existing giving destinations are retained. Tax treatment and any benefit-related limits apply according to law; confirm the details for your gift.
Full original 2025 Founding Impact Report
The full original founding narrative, financial table, community stories, and forward-looking reflections are preserved below. Statements looking toward 2026 describe the report’s historical outlook, not newly verified achievements.
2025 founding impact report
What this work made possible
Where liberation comes home to land.
Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead was created as a living practice of liberation, healing, nourishment, and belonging. Rooted in land-based care, the Homestead exists to remind us that liberation is not only theoretical. It is relational. It is embodied. It is grown, gathered, practiced, fed, and sustained in community.
In 2025, Selenite & Sage began laying the foundation for a healing homestead where people could reconnect with land, self, culture, community, and ancestral wisdom — a commitment to whole-self healing, decolonization, food sovereignty, collective care, and the belief that rest, safety, creativity, and belonging are essential parts of liberation.
The Healing Homestead was born in response to a culture of disconnection: from our bodies, from the land, from each other, from our resources, from our creativity, and from our collective power. Our response was not to build another isolated program. Our response was to build an ecosystem.
- A place where the land is teacher.
- A place where food is care.
- A place where nervous system regulation is liberation work.
- A place where youth are present, not future.
- A place where mutual aid moves with dignity.
- A place where culture, creativity, and community are essentials.
- A place where liberation comes home to land.
2025 at a glance
$12,694.87
Known 2025 community support
$5,204.00
Mobilized for Feed the Family
$6,852.88
Mobilized for the Permanent Homestead
83
Unique Zeffy supporters
105
Succeeded Zeffy payments
14
Recurring monthly supporters
- Secured a physical home base in Southwest Atlanta (exact address shared with Collective members)
- Raised $12,694.87 in known 2025 support through Zeffy and direct checks
- Mobilized $5,204.00 for Feed the Family
- Mobilized $6,852.88 for the Permanent Homestead / Housing Fund
- Received support from 83 unique Zeffy supporters across 105 succeeded payments
- Received 33 recurring Zeffy payments from 14 recurring supporters
- Responded to food insecurity during disrupted EBT/SNAP access
- Began building an ongoing free pantry and shaping a community garden
- Created the foundation for land-based gatherings, somatic education, food support, youth and family care, and stewardship
This was the year the work came home.
the home base
A home base in Southwest Atlanta
The biggest financial and material milestone of 2025 was procuring a physical home base in Southwest Atlanta. It gave the vision somewhere to land — moving Selenite & Sage from idea into infrastructure, from online community into embodied, land-based practice.
To keep the homestead safe and sacred, the exact address is shared only with members of The Collective, so they know where to show up.
- A movement needs somewhere to breathe.
- A garden needs soil.
- A pantry needs shelves.
- A circle needs a place to gather.
- A community needs a doorway.
- A vision needs a home.
The Southwest Atlanta home base became the beginning of a physical container for the Healing Homestead ecosystem: a place where food could be grown, neighbors could gather, children could help in the garden, and community care could be practiced in real time. Not only a housing milestone — a liberation infrastructure milestone.
2025 financial snapshot
Fund & campaign totals
The financial records reviewed for this report include Zeffy campaign activity beginning in October 2025, along with two direct check contributions shared for the 2025 impact report.
| Fund / Campaign | Zeffy | Check | Known 2025 Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed the Family Fund | $3,204.00 | $2,000.00 | $5,204.00 |
| Permanent Homestead / Housing Fund | $1,852.88 | $5,000.00 | $6,852.88 |
| Help Me Found My Church | $637.99 | — | $637.99 |
| Total | $5,694.87 | $7,000.00 | $12,694.87 |
These numbers show the beginning of a community-funded ecosystem. People were not only donating to an idea — they were helping make a home base, a pantry, a garden, emergency food support, and future programming possible.
feed the family
Mutual aid in real time
One of the clearest impacts of 2025 was the Feed the Family campaign, launched as families faced disrupted EBT/SNAP access, rising food costs, government shutdown impacts, and the everyday reality of trying to meet basic needs without enough support.
Selenite & Sage responded quickly.
- Not with shame.
- Not with barriers.
- Not with hoops for people to jump through.
- Not with charity that separates giver from receiver.
The Feed the Family campaign moved as mutual aid: direct, relational, dignified, and responsive. Food moved quickly. Support moved with care. People were believed. Families were fed. Dignity was protected.
“It was not just the eggs. It was the invitation. They did not feel like they were bothering anyone. They felt welcomed.”
“After panicking about SNAP not receiving more funding, she reached out for help. The next day, groceries arrived at her door — she described feeling seen, loved, and reminded that community can still show up.”
“True horizontal mutual aid — no barrier, no application, no judgment, just love and effort.”
“A neighbor walked over after seeing work happening in the garden. Groceries were tight that week. Instead of being handed food and sent away, they picked collards together. Their children rinsed them in the sink. They talked on the porch. The family left not feeling like they had taken something, but like they were part of something.”
Not only food distribution. A living reminder that people deserve to be fed and welcomed.
what this support made possible
Capacity, built together
In its founding stage, Selenite & Sage used community support to begin building capacity for:
- A Southwest Atlanta home base
- Emergency grocery and food support
- An ongoing free pantry
- A community garden
- Land-based healing and gathering
- Food sovereignty and community nourishment
- Family support and youth liberation education
- Somatic healing and nervous system education
- Restorative and culturally rooted healing practices
- Community care, mutual aid, and belonging
- Arts, culture, storytelling, poetry, and creative expression
- Leadership, stewardship, and shared responsibility
This work is not designed to move people through a program and send them away. The Homestead is being built as a place people can enter through the doorway that calls to them and be held by the larger ecosystem.
looking toward 2026
Strengthening the ecosystem
The roots planted in 2025 are preparing the way for deeper work in 2026 — an ongoing free pantry, community garden, land-based gatherings, somatic education, food support, creative programming, and community-rooted leadership.
- The Summer Series of Poetry
- LadySpeech's services and movement work
- Somatic Sundays
- Continued food support and pantry stewardship
- Community garden development
- Healing circles and land-based gatherings
- Youth and family-centered programming
- Creative expression, storytelling, and cultural work
- Expanded stewardship opportunities
As this work grows, the invitation remains the same: to build a world where liberation is not distant, abstract, or individual — but practiced together, resourced together, fed together, and returned to the land.
closing reflection
The work came home
2025 was the year Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead began becoming real in the world. A home base was secured. Families were fed. A garden began to take shape. A pantry began to emerge. Supporters gathered around the vision. Stories of care, dignity, and belonging began to show what this work makes possible.
The Homestead is still young. The infrastructure is still growing. The ecosystem is still being tended. But the roots are here.
- They are in Southwest Atlanta.
- They are in the families who received food.
- They are in the neighbors who felt welcomed.
- They are in the supporters who gave.
- They are in the children who asked to return to the garden.
- They are in every person who remembered they were not alone.
Selenite & Sage Healing Homestead is where liberation comes home to land. And in 2025, the work came home.
Original financial context & reported spending detail
This original supplemental financial material is retained as historical evidence. The 54% / 41% / 5% campaign shares describe known support raised, not spending. The 87% / 13% / 0% figures are separately reported spending proportions. The original 2026 budget is the same single full-funding goal above, not an additional request; 1,000+ people annually remains a future target.
where your money goes
Funders deserve to know exactly how their support is used
Here is what the founding year of the Collective looked like in dollars.
Total 2025 support · $12,694.87
| Fund | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|
Permanent Homestead Commons (Physical Gathering Space) Home base operations, land stewardship, physical infrastructure for gatherings, ceremonies, and community practice. | $6,852.88 | 54% |
Feed the Family (Direct Community Care) Direct food support, groceries, emergency nutrition, community meals. | $5,204.00 | 41% |
Help Me Found My Church (Spiritual Foundation) Spiritual foundation, community care coordination, sacred ceremony. | $637.99 | 5% |
operational spend breakdown
- Direct service to community87%
- Food support, stipends, scholarships, direct aid, gathering supplies.
- Operations & infrastructure13%
- Home base, utilities, land maintenance, basic operations.
- Administration & fundraising0%
- All work is volunteer-powered at this founding stage.
- Facilitator compensation2026+
- In 2025, facilitators and organizers offered their labor in service to the vision. As we scale, fair compensation for all labor is a non-negotiable priority.
2026 budget priorities
From 180 people served to 1,000+ annually
| Year-round food security & pantry operations | $85,000 |
| Facilitator compensation & workforce development | $75,000 |
| Commons development & infrastructure | $50,000 |
| Programming & community gatherings | $25,000 |
| Operations & sustainability | $15,000 |
| Total 2026 goal | $250,000 |
Every dollar is tracked. Every program is measured. We are accountable to our community first.