Board of Directors

Lisa DePiano is grounded at the intersections of agriculture, economic development, ecological design and social justice. She believes in the transformative power of worker democracy.  She brings with her two decades of experience in worker owned coops and the food system including 7 years as a worker/owner of Pedal People bicycle hauling and delivery service and as a co-founder of Parkways, a parklet manufacturing and installation company which she helped to transition into a worker coop after launching it during her time at the MIT Media Lab. She is currently a faculty member in the Sustainable Food and Farming program at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass and lives in North Amherst with her partner, their 7 month old daughter and dog, Walker.

Monica M. Garcia has been involved in community organizing for over 20 years. Her most meaningful work has been supporting and expanding the solidarity economy. Through a variety of roles, she has worked closely with worker cooperatives, community land trusts, community development credit unions and farmers markets. She strongly believes in the power and importance of community in all of its many forms and is very excited to be a part of the Common Share Coop community. Her strongest motivation for becoming involved in Common Share is the opportunity to build relationships with and among members and the broader community. During brief moments of downtime, Monica likes to dabble in hobbies that she isn’t particularly good at like birding and woodworking. She also spends an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about travel. Monica lives in Shutesbury with her family.

Madeleine Charney worked as a cashier at the food coop of her university from the start of her freshmen year. The place (and the people) became her second home as she fell in love with the generous spirit of the cooperative movement. In her 30+ year career as an academic librarian in the Valley, she co-founded two thriving groups: The National Sustainability Round Table: Libraries Fostering Resilient Communities and Blue Marble Librarians, a Massachusetts-based group that develops programs to support social resilience in response to climate change. Joining the Board of Common Share Food Coop allows her to direct her passion for community engagement and empowerment on a meaningful micro-local scale, in solidarity with nearby friends and neighbors. One of her favorite pastimes is crafting herbal remedies from her home garden and responsibly foraged plants. Madeleine lives in Amherst with her husband (a former organic farmer), their spunky teenager and a sweet feline friend.

Katie Lipsmeyer is a connector, experience designer, explorer,
community weaver, writer, and storyteller. Professionally, she
contributes her talents toward advocacy around conscious eating as
Vision Steward for internationally renowned Food Educator & Activist,
Charles x Michel.  She has worked with organizations such as the
United Nations, World Food Programme, Social Gastronomy Movement,
Rainforest Alliance, and Big Brothers Big Sisters. As former co-owner
and award-winning trainer at 50/50 Fitness/Nutrition, she has taught
20,000 hours of mindful movement through fitness. In 2019, she founded
Camp Glow It Up, a women’s summer camp promoting fitness, whimsy,
self-celebration, intentional groups, and intergenerational
relationships. Katie lives in South Amherst with her wonderful partner
and darling daughter, and she adores 1:1 human connection, her women’s
circle, cycling, and The Beatles. She believes access to good,
nutritious, local food is a basic human right and food education for
all is key to a more equitable future.

JuPong Lin is a climate justice artist/activist, poet and educator
with decades of experience in the cooperative movement. She holds a
strong belief that racial justice, environmental justice (land
justice), and food justice are all related—in the broader movement to
dismantle colonialism. As a faculty member in the MFA in
Interdisciplinary Arts program at Goddard College, she co-founded the
Cooperative Studies Working Group that created a series of webinars
with experts in the field addressing how to transition a college to a
cooperative model. JuPong currently serves as a partner on the
Hampshire County Food Policy Council on the Vision Circle and the
Circle that founded the Fort River Community Garden.

Quinn Kinney (they/them) is a recent graduate from UMass Amherst with
a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Sociology. As a freshman they
became a passionate student organizer, working on campaigns fighting
for tuition free public universities, food justice, restorative
justice, prison abolition and more. More recently Quinn was a founding
member of the Mutual Aid Project at UMass, which is centered around a
bi-weekly “Thing Swap” where community members come to exchange items,
socialize, and learn new skills by participating in skill-shares. They
joined the team as a community engagement intern over the summer of
2022 and fell in love with the vision of Common Share as a
cooperatively run full-service grocery store and community space. In
their free-time you can find them gardening, reading in downtown
Amherst coffee shops, and cooking with their friends. Quinn currently
lives in Amherst with three lovely roommates.