Renaissance international inclusion expert fueling connection through cuisine and conversation

As a child born in Germany to a U.S. Air Force aerospace engineer and homemaker with a passion for volunteering, Tina learned to adapt and relate to others from an early age. Growing up a military brat compelled her to appreciate new places, new faces and different races. While it was unbeknownst to her as a little girl, this transitional lifestyle would become formative years for her life’s work.

Fast forward to a young, aspiring woman who had graduated college and spent a decade on the West Coast in the fashion industry; Tina understandably felt a calling to join the Peace Corps—an immersive service opportunity for changemakers. This calling would prove to be another significant transformative experience in her life. Tina spent the next five years working as a child survival health volunteer and community development volunteer in Central African Republic and Benin, West Africa.

During her time in Africa, Tina worked side by side, hand in hand, with local leaders to improve the lives of villagers. She helped improve the UNICEF immunization program, developed a home-visit program for at-risk infants, and, while in Benin, became the first Peace Corps volunteer to work as a disability specialist.

Tina would spend the next three years using her heart, mind, and soul to connect with local leaders, organizations and individuals with disabilities. Her work allowed her to travel with six Benin Special Olympics athletes to the World Games in the United States. To this day, Tina reflects on that experience as one of her most rewarding and memorable adventures.

Following Tina’s service in the Peace Corps, she attended University College London, where she attained a master’s degree in community disabilities studies for developing countries. Her time in the Peace Corps and London were the early chapters that would eventually become a masterpiece of her life’s work dedicated to inclusive development and creating a more equitable society.

Upon completing her degree, Tina returned stateside. She joined the Oregon-based nonprofit Mobility International U.S. as a program manager. For the next several years, Tina would work tirelessly to establish and run an international development and disability department to further advance its mission of global advancement for people with disabilities.

Over the next decade, Tina would serve in various notable appointments, including consultant, trainer, researcher, and reporter for global institutions such as World Bank Group, InterAction, Peace Corps and the United Nations. From the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bangladesh, Tina advocated for some of the world’s most impoverished and vulnerable people. Her work has been referenced by hundreds of NGOs and played a role in creating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.                                        

In 2007, Tina found herself in Kabul, Afghanistan, working as a program manager for Handicap International France, where she focused on providing capacity building to a local disability organization. During this time, Tina learned her mom had been diagnosed with ALS and decided to return to the U.S. to be closer to her family.

Her return led her to New York City, where she landed a training position with Witness, a human-rights organization that teaches activists how to use film to advance their cause. Tina remained in the states working for Witness until her mom’s passing.

After her mom lost her battle with ALS, Tina realized how much she missed Afghanistan. While the country was ravaged by the war, the beauty of the people and the land remained a constant in Tina’s mind. She joined the Afghan Human Rights Commission as a disability rights advisor, where she helped men, women, and children with disabilities by providing technical assistance and capacity development to the Commission.

While back in Afghanistan, Tina learned that the Afghan Women’s Writers Project was seeking a country director. She transitioned from the Human Rights Commission to the Afghan Women’s Writers Project. For the next two years, Tina dedicated her time to supporting Afghan women and girls in telling their own stories with the belief that to tell one’s story is a human right.

Before returning to the U.S. in the fall of 2014 to be closer to her ailing father, Tina’s expertise in inclusive development had been utilized by NGOs such as the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the International Federation of Electoral Systems (IFES). At the request of IFES, Tina visited Libya twice to help develop a national strategy for disability inclusion in the country’s electoral process.

Between Tina’s time advocating, supporting, and training for human dignity, she also discovered a love for gardening. While in Afghanistan, she created a ¼-acre garden and visited local farming initiatives that furthered her desire to embrace sustainable agriculture. Upon her return to the states in 2014, Tina decided to solidify her newfound passion and attended the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems in California, where she received a certificate in ecological horticulture after completing a hands-on, 6-month apprenticeship on a 30-acre farm.

Her time in California would also prove to be a trajectory moment in her journey. The pages of her story were still being written, but with so much behind her, Tina felt like she was just getting started in many ways. After receiving her certificate and gaining an even stronger appreciation for farming, Tina relocated to Charleston, South Carolina. She would later realize that food and fellowship would become pillars for the second part of her life’s work.

As life would have it, her parents were from Sumter, South Carolina, so Tina’s move South felt much like going “home.” After all, she had visited South Carolina every summer for family reunions growing up. She came to Charleston, researched the farm-food scene, and worked as a farm hand for a year on Joseph Fields Farm while she contemplated her next chapter. Her father’s health had declined, so Tina eventually left the farm to allow her to commute to and from Chicago to visit her father and monitor his care.

Tina arrived in Charleston two months before the first anniversary of the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME church—a heinous tragedy where a white supremacist killed nine Black parishioners during a Bible study. Tina had lived in California during the shooting and remembers exactly where she was when she heard the news. Even though she and the farm apprentices she lived with were thousands of miles away, they held a candlelight vigil for the victims. Tina felt closely connected to the tragedy. It had hit too close to home.

Tina attended one of the anniversary events where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Bernice King, spoke to the Charleston community. Rev. King encouraged the audience to fight hate by making meaningful efforts to love and understand one another. In her words, “Go to each other’s homes. Have dinner!”

In 2016, Tina accepted Rev. King’s challenge and founded Transformation Table, a nonprofit organization that cumulates her life’s experiences into one beautifully intertwined calling—to use her own life experiences, the need for healing, and an authentic approach to curating a safe and welcoming space among strangers to host honest dialogue and sharing.

Tina realized that while living in a war zone, she had inadvertently created a gathering space for people from various walks of life, belief systems, and experiences to enjoy a delicious meal and form lasting friendships. She reflected on that as she put her concept together.

Tina’s work has been instrumental in creating connections in communities around the globe in a world full of divisiveness. Transformation Table is the ideal continuation of her previous chapters and bridges her decades of work to today’s society.

Since her first monthly host dinner, Tina has led Transformation Table in connecting more than 700 people. Tina has used her passion for food as a tool for social change and her network of talented chefs and passionate hosts to bridge differences and facilitate genuine human connection.

In 2018, Tina joined YWCA Greater Charleston as their social justice and racial equity coordinator. She coordinated dozens of racial equity trainings and established partnerships with organizations and government agencies. In 2020, Tina was promoted to the YWCA’s director of programs. She served in this role until 2022, when she decided it was time to focus on expanding Transformation Table.

Tina has been featured on numerous local, state, and national media outlets, such as Edible Charleston Magazine, Charleston Magazine, The Post & Courier, Organic Life Magazine and The Today Show. She is a writer and TEDxCharleston speaker. Tina has received notable awards, including the Peace & Dialogue Award from the Atlantic Institute and WCBD-ABC Channel 2 Hometown Hero. In November 2019, Tina was awarded a Spot Light Award in honor of Susie Jackson, one of the parishioners killed in the Mother Emanuel AME tragedy. In December 2023, Tina was named one of Charleston’s 10 Most Beautiful People representing Harmony. She appeared on Quentin Washington’s YouTube program, Quentin’s Close-Ups, and was one of 15 women honored during Dress for Success Lowcountry’s Your Hour Her Power global campaign.

In December 2022, Tina relocated to Obidos, Portugal, where she lives on a farm. Her time is now dedicated to learning Portuguese and expanding Transformation Table.