Hi, I am Melissa Erickson. I grew up in Philadelphia in a row home in West Philly to two loving parents. My dad is a Jew from Philly, a retired History Teacher, and a civil rights activist. My mother, an Irish/English woman from Oregon who was an entrepreneur and started her own daycare chain.

I have been an activist all my life and very engaged in protest, fighting for social justice and human rights and women. I started volunteering and running nonprofit groups from age 12. I studied Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston and then got an MA in Applied Cultural Anthropology at Oregon State University. I have lived in Oregon since 2010.

I did AmeriCorps and have worked in nonprofit fundraising for 15 years in Portland for various organizations focused on hunger, social justice, immigrant rights, women’s rights and empowerment and sex trafficking.

I had my boys, Ember (6) and Archer (3) and it changed my whole life and my whole self. Motherhood shook me to the core and rebuilt who I am (in a good way). I now want to fight for justice and build a better world for my children and all children and mothers.