WILDFIRE ANNUAL CONFERENCE
October 24th & 25th, 2024

ABOUT US

Wildfire is a growing movement to end poverty. We advocate for fair practices. We collaborate on policy issues. We support community action initiatives. Beyond easing the effects of poverty, our efforts aim to ignite lasting change: to stop poverty before it starts. This is advocacy in action for an Arizona where all may thrive.

Join Wildfire for a two-day conference honoring Community Action Agency staff, human services providers, and other partners who share our vision of stopping poverty before it starts

About

SPEAKERS

Karen Walrond

Author of The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy, which beckons readers towards lives of integrity, advocacy, conviction and joy. She is also the author of Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy & Raise a Little Hell, an investigation in how we can resist ageism and live a gratifying, meaningful life along the way. A leadership coach, activist and attorney, Walrond's writing and coaching have helped thousands of people around the world find meaning and purpose in their lives. By exploring the ways in which our assumptions might be made on false premises, Walrond shows us how we can tap into the lessons of past successes to create futures full of light.

Liz Warren

A fourth-generation Arizonan, is the faculty director and one of the founders of the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Her textbook, The Oral Tradition Today: An Introduction to the Art of Storytelling is used at colleges around the nation. Her recorded version of The Story of the Grail received a Parents’ Choice Recommended Award and a Storytelling World Award. The Arizona Humanities Council awarded her the Dan Schilling Award as the 2018 Humanities Public Scholar. In 2019, the American Association of Community Colleges awarded her the Dale Parnell Distinguished Faculty Award. Recent work includes storytelling curricula for the University of Phoenix and the Nature Conservancy, online webinars for college faculty and staff around the country, events for the Heard Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Desert Botanical Garden, and the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, and in-person workshops for
Senator Mark Kelly’s staff and Governor Ducey’s cabinet.

Marilyn Torres

Kown as the WestWinds Storyteller in the Phoenix valley. Born in New York City and raised on both the island of Puerto Rico and the mainland, Marilyn has spent several years traveling, researching and sharing the importance of preserving oral storytelling traditions around the world.
Marilyn is an ordained West African traditional storyteller of over 45 years and received two chieftaincies on August 1, 1984, in the village of Imota in West Africa, Nigeria as a descendent of the "children of slavery from the island of Puerto Rico." During her stay in Nigeria, (as a student of Anthropology) she was hosted by the African Religious [Ogboni] Society of African
Descendants and received a renaming ceremony giving her the name “Omifunke” in honor of her return to the land of her ancestors. Marilyn is Faculty in the Communication, Fine Arts, and Social Sciences Division at South Mountain Community College. She teaches The Art of Storytelling, Multicultural Folktales, Creating and Telling Fact-based and Historical Stories, and Personal Stories. She also leads Sean Covey Enrichment Seminars for the Ace Program on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens with an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to integrate storytelling, personal narrative, fine arts and social sciences blending the world of oral traditions into academic achievement and the progression of human development. Her work at the Storytelling Institute is focused on empowering youth through storytelling and helping them to connect with the power of their own voices and experiences.

Speakers