The team at Minnesota Youth Collective is a group of passionate, engaged individuals who represent the communities we work with. Our team is young, majority BIPOC, and majority LGBTQIA+, so when we work on issues and in communities, we understand them firsthand.
Rahhel Haile (she/they) Co-Founder/Executive Director
Rahhel co-founded the Minnesota Youth Collective and has an extensive background in youth organizing in hope of prioritizing working with BIPOC youth without co-opting their movements. Rahhel believes that visioning for an abundant future is a powerful way to move beyond the constraints of the present and offers a pathway to experiencing sizable change in our lifetimes. She values empathy, transparency, and collaboration within her leadership at MNYC. In her free time, she loves watching a bad cult classic movie, manifesting a future with a dachshund, and trying all the hot sauces she can.
Kassidy Tarala (she/her) Communications Director
Kassidy joined the Minnesota Youth Collective in July 2022, and she also works as a freelance journalist for the Minnesota Women’s Press and Lavender magazine and a volunteer editor with Empowerment Avenue. She also volunteers with the Minnesota and Twin Cities chapters of Planned Parenthood as well as Communities United Against Police Brutality. She is passionate about abolition, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ liberation, and housing advocacy. Her interests include musical theater, waterparks, her dog Harvey, horror films, skateboarding, listening to MUNA, and taking care of her 30+ houseplants.
Natalie Somerson (she/her) Advocacy Director
Over the past decade that Natalie has called Minnesota home, she has managed youth leadership development programs and created opportunities for young people to discover the overlap between their identities and advocacy work, which led her to the Minnesota Youth Collective in June 2022. She believes in the contagious power of civic engagement and shifting power dynamics. In her free time, you can find Natalie curating her earring collection, walking around the lakes, and looking for an excuse to eat ice cream!
Sumaya Ali (she/her) Development Manager
Having joined the Minnesota Youth Collective in October 2019, Sumaya works alongside Adrienne and Rahhel to secure funding for the Minnesota Youth Collective. Outside of work, she loves to spend time outdoors hiking, camping, and hammocking. She also enjoys live music and going to shows. Sumaya is an aspiring birth worker and a lifelong student of the reproductive justice framework, which is the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, to have children, to not have children, and to parent children in safe and sustainable communities. She believes that through radical reproductive justice we can achieve collective liberation.
Adrienne Doyle (she/they) Development Director
Adrienne joined the Minnesota Youth Collective in June 2021 and is an artist organizer and fund development professional with an eye for resource systems and a love for lush exploration. With experience in youth-led research and community organizing, Adrienne applies a wealth justice lens to their fundraising work while centering the voice and political leadership of young people. Outside of work, they are reinvesting in their Black queer imagination through creative writing.
Taylor Seaberg (they/them) Operations Manager
Taylor Ngiri Seaberg joined the Minnesota Youth Collective in February 2020 as the operations manager. They are a a Kenyan-American, gender-nonbinary community organizer and multi-instrumentalist based in Chicago, Illinois, originally from South Minneapolis. They have been awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant and Red Bull Arts grant for their protest photography around the 2020 Uprising in the Twin Cities. Taylor was a lead director on a compilation community album called “The Art of the Revolution,” which included works of resilience from 10 Black arts organizers and activists. They are currently a Metro Regional Arts Council finalist for the $5,000 Next Step Fund grant for a live-streaming concert incorporating Kiswahili and English for a live production showcase.
Nautica Flowers (they/he/she) Digital Organizer
Nautica Flowers joined MNYC as a Social Media Intern in March 2023 before transitioning into their current full-time role as Digital Organizer in September 2023. Nautica is an educator, organizer, and small business owner in the Twin Cities. Before joining MNYC, they worked in social media management and utilized social media to sustain organizing efforts over the past few years. Nautica is passionate about radical Black joy and liberation and knows that social media is just one medium to educate and fundraise for Black peace. The work Nautica does focuses on Blackness through a young, queer lens and on how current structures and ways of being can better empower vulnerable youth. Outside of this realm of work, you can find Nautica doing tarot and astrology readings as well as organizing wellness retreats for the wider Minnesota Community.
Riley Fletcher (they/them) Finance Manager
Riley joined MNYC as the finance manager in May 2023. They first got involved with youth organizing in Minneapolis while attending the University of Minnesota, where they studied political science, global studies, and Arabic. After graduating, they worked with The Advocates for Human Rights, familiarizing themself with nonprofit operations and financial management before joining MNYC. Riley is passionate about community organizing through a lens of queer liberation and intersectional justice. In their free time, Riley is often found thrifting, exploring local coffee shops, camping, or spending time with friends.