Board & Staff

Jose Lopez is our Operations Manager and currently our Interim Director. He is one of the longest-serving FCWA team members, getting his start as a dedicated intern and volunteer from 2013-2016. Jose worked with Alliance member UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles as am El Super Boycott Lead, which put him front and center in food worker struggles on the ground. Jose also comes with communications experience as a volunteer leader of the Dream Team LA, an immigrant rights organization. He also runs trainings and other member recruitment and retention activities for Dream Team LA.

Christina Spach has 15 years of experience in community organizing and advocating for racially-equitable food policy. Her work began supporting indigenous leaders with environmental justice initiatives in Southern Belize and led to organizing across the country to support communities of color building power. At FCWA, Christina provides direct campaign support to grassroots coalitions leveraging public purchasing to protect food worker organizing and to hold food suppliers accountable to fair labor practices. She also serves on the boards of the HEAL Food Alliance and Food for the Spirit.

Elizabeth Walle has more than a decade of experience in nonprofit fundraising under her belt, coming to FCWA in 2018 from the world of the arts. In her time here, she has been thrilled to learn about the labor movement from many experienced organizers and worker-leaders across the Alliance’s membership, and now counts herself as a passionate advocate for all workers and the right to organize.

Itzhel Gibson is our part-time Operations Associate. Itzhel is a member of Dream Team LA, a grassroots organization that advocates for the rights of immigrants across the country. On top of that, she has been a volunteer for the City of Los Angeles for over two decades, helping with all types of community events. As a teenager, she helped with the growth of the Heart of Los Angeles Youth Program for four years and won a grant for college for all of her hard volunteer work.

Now as she continues advancing her career, she attends Paul Mitchell, the school for her cosmetology license and still manages to help her community by offering haircuts and makeovers for free. She often visits Skid Row, senior centers, and centers for battered woman to help organize haircut events along with the non-profit Fred Jordan Missions organization.

She came to Alliance through UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles as a El Super Boycotter in Los Angeles in the union’s campaign fighting the injustice that immigrant food workers endured at El Super grocery chain.