Friday, May 5, 2023
10:30am-11:20am
When institutions running social safety nets don’t understand the needs of the communities they’re supposed to help, people fall through the cracks—but secular and humanist organizers are working to catch them. Learn how these leaders are building a brighter future for struggling communities from the bottom up. GO Humanity Executive Director Tif Ho will talk with Aiden Barnes from Southeastern Virginia Atheists, Skeptics, & Humanists, Devon Graham from Humanists of Tallahassee, and Evan Clark from Atheists United about secular service.
Aiden Barnes is the President of the Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH), a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit with 14 chapters across Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. He also serves as Chapter Coordinator for WASH’s Southeastern Virginia Atheists, Skeptics, & Humanists (SEVASH) group, and volunteers as American Atheists’ Assistant State Director for Virginia Beach, VA.
A lifelong skeptic, Aiden is proud to serve as a secular organizer in the pursuit of promoting science, reason, and humanist values in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Executive Director of Atheists United, Evan Clark is a humanist entrepreneur, political consultant, and public speaker with over 14 years of experience tinkering with secular communities.
Evan is also the founder and creative director of Spectrum Experience LLC, the North American Coordinator for Young Humanists International, and California State Director for American Atheists. Previously he was Chair of the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors, co-host of the Humanist Experience podcast and co-founder of the Humanist Community of Ventura County.
As a student leader, Evan was the founder and president of the Secular Student Alliance at California Lutheran University (CLU). In 2010, Evan was also elected CLU’s first openly atheist student body president.
Evan was hired in 2019 as Atheists United’s first Executive Director.
Devon Graham is a secular activist in Tallahassee, FL, and is the president of the Humanists of Tallahassee (HOT), a growing community of folks living their humanist values in the Deep South. Outside of her volunteer work, she is an assistant professor of biomedical sciences researching the development and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. More importantly, she is busy raising her two children to be functioning, compassionate members of society.
Tif Ho is the Executive Director of GO Humanity, where she works with local volunteers in underserved communities, to provide access to socioeconomic resources. Tif is also a Ph.D. candidate, through which she researches and writes on the underrepresentation of Asian American women in leadership and JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion). In both her work at GO Humanity and her academic research, she is passionate about connecting people and communities, and in particular, about exploring the stories of immigrants and BIPOC individuals in ways that uplift and uphold dignity. In her free time, Tif enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, writing, and exploring. She’s constantly pursuing adventures in learning, creativity, culture, travel, and the great outdoors.
