Our Team

Co-Op Navigator

VARUN KHATTAR SHARMA (they/them) is a 2022-2025 Co-Op Navigator Fellow with the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast and reSET, a founder and worker-owner of the People’s Saturday School, a cooperative of anti-oppression facilitators based in Hartford, Connecticut, and a trainer and coach with Co-Creating Effective & Inclusive Organizations and Beyond Diversity 101.

varun is a Punjabi Queer non-binary facilitator, teacher, writer, designer, curator, and strategist. They previously taught high school social sciences and ethnic studies. In 2020, they co-founded the Connecticut UndocuFund, a project that redistributed over a quarter of a million dollars to working class immigrant households impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a youth member with CT Students for a Dream, varun was involved in a six-year long legislative campaign that expanded financial aid access for undocumented students at CT public universities and community colleges. Later as program manager, they worked with young people, caregivers, educators, administrators, and government officials on the policy’s implementation. They began their career in public health, youth development, mutual aid, deportation defense, and educational equity work in Central and Eastern Connecticut.

The 2024 - 2025 Advisory board:

Cooperate Connecticut is currently stewarded by an Advisory Board that was appointed by the co-founders.In 2024, we are in the midst of studying and adopting sociocratic methods and establishing our governance and membership model. The current Board term is 18 months, lasting from April 1, 2024 until September 30, 2025.

Brad Sheridan
Brad Sheridan is an employee and owner-member at Fiddleheads Food Cooperative in New London , Ct.
Caprice Taylor Mendez
Caprice Taylor Mendez is currently the President of Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, aiming to build people power for Health Justice.
Javier Villatoro
Javier Villatoro is a two spirited Zapotec poet. In 2014 Javi jumped the border and has been living on Quinnipiac land since where he works as a Chef and as a worker owner of Tortilleria Semilla Cooperativa.
Jeff Devereux
Jeff Devereux is a Hartford resident and partner and founder of Hartford based community venture building studio Breakfast Lunch & Dinner.
Jeremy Woodward
Jeremy is an engineer, a father & husband, a community organizer, a Co-founder for Bridgevolt Cooperative, and libertarian socialist.
Pável Uranga
Pável is the Director of Immigrant Services at CDI.
Rebecca Fletcher
Rebecca is a Loan & Outreach Officer for the Cooperative Fund for the Northeast.
Slate Ballard
Slate is a creative, communications, and organizational change consultant and a community cultivator. Slate is a Capacity Building and Training Partner at Co-creating Effective and Inclusive Organizations (CEIO).
Roslyn Sotero
Roslyn is a Waterbury resident, grassroots organizer and Project Manager of The People's Place. Founded in 2023, TPP is an emerging incubator for economic growth and social change that connects organizers and entrepreneurs to development, technology and each other.
Sarah Bodley
Sarah is the Executive Director of reSET Social Enterprise Trust, is a nonprofit professional with over a decade of experience leading organizations focused on entrepreneurship and the arts.
Sarana Carter
Sarana is a mother, artist, Hartford native, organization builder, and movement architect. They are most happy when discussing the contradictions in our movements and working towards the collective wellness required for us to live the values we are learning.
Vania Galicia-Bacilio
Vania is a DACAmented immigrant who migrated to Willimantic, Connecticut when she was three years old. She first began organizing as a teen in the Willimantic community, she now develops youth and community programming to teach others how to grow their own food, community and advocacy skills.
Alicia Pittman
Farron Harvey
Vetiveah