Because Keeping Oakland Beautiful is Everyone's Business
Keep Oakland Beautiful is run and managed by a board of volunteers who contribute their time and expertise to keeping Oakland beautiful. Keep Oakland Beautiful is also a Keep America Beautiful (KAB) affiliate and is part of the KAB President's Circle 2018 and 2019.

​Meet our Board of Directors​

Leslie Allen
Leslie serves as the 2020 Board Chair.
Leslie is a biologist and environmental consultant and has lived in Oakland since 2004. Her work focuses on environmental regulatory compliance for public infrastructure and transportation construction, habitat restoration, and technical studies of wetlands, plants and wildlife. She and her husband met in Oakland and live in the Piedmont Avenue Commercial District, where you can find them walking their dog, working on house renovations, and swapping garden vegetables with neighbors.

Leah Cerri
​Leah serves as the 2020 Board Vice-Chair.
Leah Cerri has been working in the nonprofit sector for over 15 years.  She has developed training for mentoring programs and has built volunteer programs for Episcopal Community Services, Mission Economic Development Agency and San Francisco CASA.  She currently works for Eden Housing as the Volunteer Programs Manger.  Leah has her Master’s degree in nonprofit business administration from Tulane University.  In addition to being a Board Member for Keep Oakland Beautiful, she currently is part of Leadership Oakland class of 2017, and is a member of Hayward Rotary. She has previously served as the External Committee Lead for the Board of Directors for CommunityGrows, and has served on the Membership Committee for the Young Nonprofit Professional Network.  In her spare time she enjoys going on hikes with her dogs and gardening.

Camyle Allen
Camyle serves as the 2020 Board Secretary.​
Camyle is an environmental consultant who brings her passion and advocacy for environmental sustainability to the KOB board. She has a Masters degree in Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School and a Bachelors degree in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan. Camyle has volunteered throughout Oakland with various organizations that focus on applying the core concepts of environmental sustainability to community revitalization projects, community development, education, public health etc. She hails from Michigan and moved to California in 2017; currently, she lives in Oakland where she can be found enjoying the many bars and restaurants the area has to offer or hiking with her Shiloh Shepherd.

Margo Brooks
Margo serves as the 2020 Board Treasurer.
Margo was born and raised in Berkeley and has a passion for the environment, and has studied green design, energy efficiency and permaculture design.  She has over 15 years experience as a production manager working in television in Los Angeles, as well as organizing and teaching workshops, owning her own business and working in finance. Margo now lives in the Oakland hills working as a freelance project manager and is dedicated to enhancing her community, believing that change starts at home in the community and ripples out to create more beauty in the world.

​Adriana Lewis
Adriana is a Bay Area property manager who initiated her career in the real estate industry in 2016. Before joining the industry, she took advantage of developing her skills and professional experience by accumulating over 8 years of work in customer service and volunteerism, while also being a full-time student. She obtains a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California – Berkeley, a California Certified Residential Manager (CCRM) certification from CAA University, and a California Department of Real Estate License. She is also currently working on obtaining her Real Estate Broker License and is completing several licensing courses through First Tuesday Real Estate School. Throughout her career, Adriana has made curb appeal, community safety, and environmental awareness a top priority. She is newly married and has lived in Oakland with her now-husband for 4 years, and hopes her contribution to the Keep Oakland Beautiful mission will assist in her efforts of helping herself and others in the community feel a strong sense of security and comfort.

Amy Schweng
Amy  Schweng is a Bay Area native and currently lives in the Glenview neighborhood of Oakland. She has fond childhood memories of frequent trips to Oakland Chinatown for groceries and dim sum and climbing the dragon at Children’s Fairyland. Now she can be found enjoying Oakland’s natural beauty by exploring the various parks and trails scattered throughout the city, running around Lake Merritt, or participating in various clean-ups in Glenview, Dimond Park, Sausal Creek and the Cleveland Cascades. Amy hopes to contribute to the Keep Oakland Beautiful mission by bringing her spirit of volunteerism and passion for keeping things neat and tidy wherever she goes.

Andrea Silvestri
​Andrea Silvestri has wide-ranging experience in several design disciplines, including graphic design, design for public space, human interface design, and information design. Her work focuses on  organizing complex information and synthesizing design and technology. Andrea is an avid outdoor enthusiast and loves hiking, backpacking, swimming, and walking around Lake Merritt. She participated in Keep America Beautiful clean up days when she was a child and still remembers the crying Indian ad campaign. She lives with her husband and daughter in the Ivy Hill neighborhood.

Bob Bodnar 
Bob has lived in a 1919 craftsman bungalow in East Oakland for 20 years. He is a government attorney and the chairman of his local neighborhood council (NCPC). In that capacity, he has worked on community improvement projects, adopting a large traffic island and adding planter boxes to what had been a barren asphalt-covered eyesore. More recently, he worked with local artists to add a mosaic tile feature to the planter boxes. Bob has organized, and participated in, tree planting efforts and neighborhood cleanups in his neighborhood. He is an avid bike commuter, riding from his house to the Jack London Ferry terminal and into San Francisco daily. Riding around Oakland on a bicycle can be very serene. The ride through Fruitvale and along the estuary never fails to elevate his mood. Bob enjoys the water. He learned to sail on Lake Merritt and now ventures under the Golden Gate once and awhile. Or you might see him on his SUP paddling around Jack London.  He’ll be the one occasionally leaning down to pick up trash.

Carol Laughlin
Carol moved to Oakland in 2007 to work in nonprofit after an exciting career in event management. She has worked in volunteer and community engagement roles at several Bay Area nonprofit organizations including the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Samaritan House, Jumpstart, HandsOn Bay Area and Catholic Charities SF. Managing large-scale volunteer projects is the favorite part of her job. She loves the outdoors and has hiked and camped all over the Western United States and California. ​

FranCine Gadsden
A native of Brooklyn, NY, FranCine relocated to Northern California to work for the San Francisco based fashion designer Jessica McClintock/Gunne Sax before starting her own children’s line FranCine’s Fashions 4 Children, which was a way for children to take pride in their heritage while making a fashion statement. She designed the collection by using Asian, African, Latino and American Indian inspired prints.  The collection was featured and sold in Northern Californian Nordstrom and Macy’s stores during Black History Month and nationwide in several children specialty stores year round. FranCine is now focused on a new business, Sticks and Stones, a collection of wearable words and thought provoking images printed on tees and sweatshirts allowing both the wearer and the viewer to be empowered.  Over the last few years Sticks and Stones Tees & More has grown its collection of wearable art expanding to light housewares, party accessories, tote bags, and stationary,  her collection is gaining traction on the “socio-fashion” scene day by day.

Grant Chen
Grant was born and raised in San Francisco and has been living in Oakland since 2017. He currently works in health insurance as an actuarial analyst and previously was a high school math teacher in New York City.  He has also helped develop waste reduction curriculum for Alameda County. He currently lives in the Hoover Foster neighborhood of West Oakland and serves as the secretary for the Hoover Foster Resident Action Council.  He lives with his husband Benedict and tiny, senior chihuahua Mambo. He enjoys cooking, gardening, woodworking, and running. ​

Jenn Jones
Originally from the Midwest, Jenn relocated to the Bay Area in 2014 to escape brutal winters. She has over 20 years of experience working for environmental, arts, design and advocacy organizations, and is the CEO/Executive Director of the California Water Environment Association. Prior to joining CWEA, she served as the Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects San Francisco and the San Francisco Center for Architecture + Design. When not nerding-out about association management, tech trends, or music, you can find her plotting ways to make a living selling bad ceramics to tourists in Central America, enabling her to dive, hang out with her senior Shiba Inu, Kula, enjoying fresh mangoes every day.​

Melissa Boilon
Melissa is a California native and has worked in the field of philanthropy for over 14 years. She specializes in program evaluation and grant-making, and has enjoyed working with a wide range of nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area, including those focused on environmental conservation, immigration and human rights, education, and community development. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from CSU Dominguez Hills and a Bachelor's Degree in English from UC Davis. In her free time, she loves exploring the labyrinth of trails at the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland with her husband and cattle dog.

Michael Gabriel
Michael Gabriel brings his experience as staff consultant to non-profit groups and his interest in beautification to the KOB board. After 27 years, Michael retired from national non-profit, NeighborWorks® America. There, he reviewed over $100 million in grant applications and helped organizations to increase civic participation using mission-based, economically sustainable models. The Bay Area native studied at UC Berkeley and worked as a Zoning Administrator for Piedmont and Oakland. His lifelong interest in landscaping grew while working for a design-build landscape firm during his college years. Michael’s community volunteer activities include serving as president of the Glenview Neighborhood Association, president of the Oakland Recycling Association, member of the Oakland Community Economic Advisory Commission, and numerous other task forces and committees. His other interests include art pottery, architecture, antiques, and gardens and he enjoys living in a 1912 Craftsman home with his family.

Nisha Chauhan
Nisha is a senior land planner and has accumulated a wide range of environmental and land planning experience during the past twenty years. She studied Environmental Studies at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Land Planning at U.C. Davis Extension. She has lived in Oakland for ten years and hopes to share her experience to help her community. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking at Redwood Regional Park, weaving, and attending the Farmers Market.

Sara Tetreault
Sara has more than a decade of experience leading and delivering audience research studies, content strategies, and strategic messaging projects. Sara is currently Director, Brand Strategy for Forum One and has led content marketing and strategy for healthcare technologies at the Advisory Board Company and managed health communications at the Brookings Institution. Sara has worked with clients such as USAID, Global Impact, Internews, the Aspen Institute, and the Smithsonian National Zoo and has extensive experience conducting audience research, developing branding strategies, and crafting content, visual messaging, and scripting for fundraising pitch decks. Sara is also a member of YR Media's communications advisory board. In her spare time, Sara enjoys exploring parks in the Bay Area, walking her dog, and creating new things.

Keep Oakland Beautiful 2020 Interns

Cali Carson
Cali is honored to serve as a founding teen member of the Keep Oakland Beautiful Youth Coalition. She is a junior in the Oakland Unified School District and has raised over $2000 for teacher supplies to date. In addition to being on the honor roll, she has ten years of volunteer experience in the community, ranging from collecting clothing for homeless babies to cleaning up our beaches. Her hobbies include mountain biking, hiking and designing clothing. She is proud to make her hometown of Oakland a better place for all of us to enjoy.

Tiara Wilkerson
Tiara Wilkerson is currently a 17-year-old junior in high school. She attends East Bay Innovation Academy. Tiara was raised and lives in Oakland. She is very passionate about the environment. She has demonstrated this passion by organizing her school's environmental club. Her club partakes in many activities such as educating students about eco-friendly habits and major global environmental issues, planting trees to promote local biodiversity, and funding to have trees planted in areas of need, most recently being Australia. Tiara is a new member of Keep Oakland Beautiful and is excited to devote her time to beautifying the city. 

Header Photo credit: Leonard Van Boven