Paula

She has two biological children, an adult boy and a 9 year old girl. She is and was very involved in her children’s lives. She was the treasurer and advancement coordinator for her son’s Boy Scout Troop as well as Pack leader for Cub Scouts. She is now on the PTO board as Fundraising VP for her daughter. She was raised primarily in Lansing, Michigan and is the oldest of 3 children. She loves exploring the Columbia area and Volunteering her time at her daughters school in her spare time.

 Catherine Fleming Bruce

Catherine Fleming Bruce is author of the award-winning book, ‘The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements. In 2017, she became the first African-American winner of annual Historic Preservation Book Prize, presented by the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Bruce founded TNOVSA LLC and TNOVSA Global Commons as methods of engagement in transformational politics, global ethics and norms, and historic and cultural preservation. She led the effort to preserve the home of South Carolina civil rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins, and is currently preserving the Cyril O. Spann Medical Office along with the Visanska Starks House and Carriage House, all in Columbia, South Carolina. She currently serves as the State Coordinator for Black Voters South Carolina Initiative, and March On South Carolina, a state program of March On and Fight Back PAC.

An alumna of Agnes Scott College, with a dual BA in English/Creative Writing and Art, Bruce received her Master of Arts in Mass Communication and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina, and pursued doctoral studies there in mass communication, philosophy and ethics, international relations and international law. She has worked in public television, and is a member of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). She has participated in such global governance efforts as the World Summit for the Information Society, held in Geneva and Tunis by the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union.

LaRahna Hughes

LaRahna Hughes is a California native but she has spent most of her adult life as a southerner in Georgia and most recently South Carolina. She is mom to five which includes 2 sons, 2 daughters and 1 daughter in law and “Grandma Blanket” to three grandchildren: two granddaughters and a grandson. She has bachelor degrees in human resource management (with a concentration in training and development) and personnel psychology. She continued her formal education at Regent University where she earned a Masters in Practical Theology. She has also completed additional graduate studies in the field of History.

She became engrossed in community work while living in Atlanta, Georgia and that passion has been fueled by her quest to help repair and rebuild sustainable communities. She spent twenty years of her professional career as a consultant to community-based nonprofits, faith organizations and small businesses. Her call to community development work as a consultant led her to explore other ways to impact change at the community level. It was this pursuit that eventually led her to seminary and farming. Faith and food have become part of her life work. Her strong belief is that our faith community holds the keys for shaping sustainable values in our community and she wholeheartedly believes that nature and farming provide lessons and parables for living. She is a champion for social change as it relates to living our values. Her life work of building sustainable community is evident in her current life work. She is currently the owner of Seeds Cafe, Farm and Market which is an emerging farm to table restaurant, farm, farmers market and residential community. She is also a part of Reimagining Church which currently serves the community by offering a monthly interfaith spiritual gathering “Soul Food Sundays” and by seeking out solutions for meeting the spiritual needs of the diverse, interfaith community in which she lives. Her work allows her to plant seeds daily in the lives of others. One of her regular reminders about living is to “plant good seeds and water them with pure water.” Her life work is to plant good seeds as often as possible and to water good seeds that others have planted, because seeds try their best to grow!