I found my footing as a community organizer through Aflorar Herb Collective, and it's the volunteer work that has shaped me most. Herbalism was my way in, but organizing became the practice I couldn't put down. What started as showing up to help has grown into consistently taking on more responsibility, learning the logistics, the relationships, and the follow-through it takes to keep this work reliable for the people counting on it. Aflorar centers herbalism as a form of collective care. We serve working-class folks, people of color, and anyone priced out of the wellness industry, bringing free herbal medicine and healing directly to people through land-based gatherings, tea stations, and mutual aid, so cost never decides whether someone gets to heal. I try to lead by staying grounded in what the community already knows and needs, rather than showing up with something new to teach. That's why I believe leadership through service matters: it's about noticing what a community actually needs, often before anyone asks, and helping build the infrastructure, however small, to meet it. What's really shaped my leadership, though, is that I'm not separate from the community I serve. I'm part of it. I live with the same rising costs and the same need for support that everyone else within Aflorar's network carries too. Most of what we do is co-led, a shared effort where different people step up depending on what's needed and who's holding what shifts week to week. Some weeks I'm helping coordinate the distribution of free herbs to the people, and other weeks I'm the one who needs a remedy I can't afford, or a hand with something I can't do alone. That mutuality is the whole point: giving support and needing it, sometimes in the same week. It's taught me a lot of humility, letting go of the idea that a leader is someone who always has it together and is only ever the one helping. It also means I trust the people I organize with more, because I know they show up for each other the same way they've shown up for me. The impact on me has been just as significant as the impact on the community we serve. Organizing through Aflorar has taught me patience and how to lead without needing to be the center of the story. You can't organize a community you don't know, and you can't serve people well if you're not willing to be changed by the work and to be helped by it too! That's why I believe leadership through service matters. It isn't about one person accomplishing something and calling it impact. It's about redistributing power so a community can carry weight together, the way Aflorar has taught me to carry it, giving support and needing it in equal turn. I'm bringing that same approach to the Uplift Access Garden Project now, stewarding herbal care networks and land access so this work remains reliable for people, no matter who's holding it in a given season.