Our Team

Tracie Troxler

Founder & Executive Director

     Tracie is the founder and co-creator at Sunshine Community Compost and a Manatee County native who lived 17 years in the San Francisco Bay area until 2016. In 2017 she launched Sunshine Community Compost, which emerged from the intersection of her passions for people, planet, creativity, and through years of teachings from mentors, farmers, engineers, social workers, travels, and ancestral stewards of life and land that came long before her. Tracie's combined experience working in pediatric occupational therapy, community mental health care, nonprofit management, community-based renewable energy, and sustainable and regenerative agriculture set the foundation for the organization. Community work in the early 1990's between a group of indigenous community leaders in Nevada and students helped her begin to realize and start peeling back the layers understanding related to systemic environmental inequities and the human and ecological life and death consequences that result from disproportionately placed burdens of waste. These early experiences illustrated the interdependence between people and planet and informed her that all voices are not heard with equal resonance in response to profit-driven, human-derived environmental degradation. An early healthcare career enabled her to work with teams and clients in community settings that worked to get people off the streets, provided comprehensive care for adults with HIV & AIDS, and educated youth with unique developmental milestone achievement in public schools. Community work and sustainability efforts converged when Tracie worked for GRID Alternatives, facilitating neighborhood solar energy installation projects with families who qualified as low income  - commonly installed in regions that were inequitably burdened by the impacts of pollution. She operated a bicycle-based backyard gardening program, has spent many years educating youth, and spent a year practicing how to grow all her own food after learning closed-loop-system farming from people around the world who grew crops based on calorie density for survival and commonly without the farm and garden inputs so readily available in the west such as imported fertilizer, purchasable compost or easy access to tools. These experiences deepened her passion for improving human and planetary health and wellness outcomes in relation to gardening and farming, material and energy conservation, reducing the wasting of food, transforming cultural norms around the disposability of people and the planet, turning "waste" into resources and the need to transform as much inedible organic material into soil to grow food and stronger community connections for present and future generations.

Salua Rivero

Community Compost Program Associate

     Salua has been passionate about composting since High School where she joined an after school club called SOIL Haiti, which provides full-cycle sanitation services that turn human waste into compost for agricultural use. Since then, she has been learning how to be more conscious with her choices and reducing waste on a daily basis. During her college experience, Salua  she participated in a program at Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center in Tennessee in the summer of 2018, where she learned about  the foundations of Sustainability, Community and Spirituality. Since then, this has been her mission in her career and personal life. Salua focused on a degree of Environmental Studies with a focus on ethnobotany at New College of Florida. During her time at NCF, she worked as the Compost Program Manager. She managed the campuses compost program and taught a Compost Tutorial class where she guided other students through the process of composting. While studying in school, she also found a passion for herbalism and began creating her own DIY herbal medicine products for her friends, family  and community. She has always felt that taking care of the land, soil, plants and animals has been foundational in her mission. Her mission is to walk lightly on the Earth and reduce waste, create and share medicine from the plants, tend to the soil, be an advocate for all people and for all beings in the natural world and so much more. Salua is excited to have found an organization that aligns so deeply with her values and she knows that this organization is going to expand and create big change in the world.

Bryn Bell

Outreach and Education Intern - Summer 2021 

     Bryn Bell is an artist currently pursuing his degree in illustration at Ringling College of Art and Design. He is an intern at Sunshine Community Compost and is passionate about helping SCC educate others and reduce waste. His artwork is characterized by its vivid colors and strong textures, created using both digital and traditional mediums. Bryn is from Chandler, Arizona where he and his family have lived for 20 years, and he currently resides in Sarasota, Florida for his studies. After graduating, he hopes to work on children’s book illustrations and concept design.

Shelby King

President & Secretary

     Shelby connected with Sunshine Community Compost in early 2019 with enthusiasm for the mission. Shelby has nearly two decades of experience in agriculture and spreading the message of sustainable practices through her work. She was a founding partner in the original King Family Farm & Market, has been a farm grower, manager, and vendor has set up multiple farmers markets, and created education-based partnerships with schools and businesses to promote sustainable practices. Currently, she is the Account Manager and Local Farm Ambassador for FreshPoint Produce. In addition to this work, she also helps run a family business in cut-flowers called BouLous Flower Farm and brings wisdom to those around her through her life experiences and from being the mother of three children. 

Samantha Grimm

Director

     Samantha found Sunshine Community Compost through the Cross College Alliance Internship program offered to residents in the Manatee/Sarasota County.  She is a current student at Ringling College of Art and Design majoring in Graphic Design and minoring in the business of art and design.  With her degree, she plans on using her craft to help businesses and organizations become visually impactful.  During her internship with Sunshine Community Compost, she redesigned the website to become more user-friendly, visually balanced, and engaging.  She also collaborated with Tracie in creating a communication plan and designed the August 2020 newsletter.  In her free time, you can find her dancing with family and friends, hiking up a mountain, or climbing a rock wall.

Sandi Troxler

Director

     Sandi has led a life of service beginning with her first career as a certified registered nurse anesthetist. She has been passionate about community service and engagement from a young age and passed these qualities onto her four adult children. She has served on many local nonprofit Board of Directors and special committees, with organizations in different stages of growth, while at the same time serving in the role of a donor for many local nonprofits. She uses her experiences with nonprofits to help SCC reflect realistically on successes and areas of need so the organization can grow to its fullest potential. In her spare time, she enjoys long walks, yoga, attending community functions, and spending time with friends

and family.

Christine Callahan

Treasurer

     Christine was introduced to community composting in 2016 as a participant in the early compost pilot projects that led to the formation and incorporation of Sunshine Community Compost. She was the President of Callahan Associates since 1999, a local business that offered systems programming and analyst services, specializing in government service. She retired in April of 2020. She has been a Master Gardener since 2005, a school “Edible Garden Teacher” since 2006, was a Citizen Advisory Council member for the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program for four years, and project lead in a partnership with City of Bradenton Beach to lead environmental education programs for school-age youth 2010-2011. She helped design and implement the 4th and 5th-grade composting program at Anna Maria Island Elementary School and recently became a member of the Manatee County Library Advisory Board. Christine is a mother of two adult sons and in her free time practices and advocates for all things gardening and composting.

Samantha Valentin

Director

     Sam first connected with Sunshine Community Compost in 2017 when founder and executive director, Tracie Troxler, appeared on a radio show Sam co-hosted. Hearing Tracie’s knowledge and passion for composting hooked Sam and she has been a composting advocate and enthusiast ever since. Sam is a Florida Native, born and raised right here in Sarasota and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Marketing from the University of South Florida. She is an enthusiastic marketing and events professional with a history in both non-profit and for-profit industries. In her current role as events coordinator for Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, Sam oversees fundraising and outreach events of all sizes and actively works to engage and educate the local community on the importance of environmental protection efforts. Prior to joining the team at Conservation Foundation, Sam was marketing and communications manager for Goodwill Manasota where she was responsible for all Goodwill marketing efforts in Sarasota, Manatee, Hardee, and DeSoto counties. She is a member of the 2021 Leadership Sarasota class and in her spare time loves camping, spending time with her husband and young son, exploring nature with friends, and learning more about our incredible planet.