Mother, entrepreneur, eco-feminist, somatic therapist, solutionary …
Laura M. Ridenour (she/her) is a consultant, writer, strategist, fundraiser, and certified coach with 20+ years in the nonprofit sector and a lifetime in food movements. She has advanced training in sociology, Somatic Experiencing, neurobiology, and chronic pain relief.
Laura was born in Detroit, Michigan, but spent most of her childhood traveling, either with her parents or between her parents respective homes - one in a 1,200 person intentional land-based commune in rural Tennessee and the other in urban Santa Cruz, California. Both homes were rooted in activism, counter-culture and environmentalism. Her ancestors came to North America from Ireland, Poland, England, Germany and France. She currently lives with her young son on the present day and ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish People, also known as Bellingham, Washington.
Laura has extensive experience in marketing and community engagement, beginning in her teen years as an environmental activist and helping grow her family’s organic food business. For over a decade she focused on policy solutions, domestic food insecurity, and economic development with farm and food-based businesses, including running a successful beginning farmer business incubator. She founded the now state-wide EatLocalFirst.org campaign, and food policy councils and campaigns outside of Washington. She co-founded the Farm Fund’s Revolving Loan, and was an initiating force behind the Whatcom Food Network, which established a food policy council and an innovative 10-year food system plan. Laura is the co-author of the 8th edition of the 196-page Washington State Small Farm Direct Marketing Guide.
Laura is adept at public speaking, holding space for group process and facilitating practices for inclusion, and power sharing, such as liberating structures (LS design) in online and in-person formats, and in another example, bringing holocracy and consent-based governance to the establishment of the North American Food Systems Network, a project of Cornell University.
Laura has a M.A. in Sociology of Food and Agriculture with a focus on qualitative methods, adult transformational experiences and human dimensions of disaster and recovery for vulnerable populations, as well as a B.A. in Food Systems and Social Change. Laura also holds certificates and hands on experience in ecological horticulture and organic farming, as well as in Integrative Somatic Trauma Healing Therapy, Mind-Body Coaching, and is an advanced professional Somatic Experiencing (SE) practitioner.
MISSION STATEMENT
Helping people build attention and capacity, practice resilience, and center equity so we can transform the world.
WORK WITH LAURA
My ideal clients are leaders — including women, femmes, mothers — who are interested in the body as an ecology that has innate medicine that you can tap into with specific practices, and any person, organization or team interested in centering liberation and embodied joy.