Our Work
Connecting Community strives to practice radical imagination to address equity and cultural learning. We challenge ourselves to explore new possibilities of thinking and connecting by sharing stories and experiences, asking critical questions, and applying research-based strategies to make more informed decisions.
Connecting Community provides workshops, events, and classes for local organizations and families. We enjoy collaborating with advocacy organizations including Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center and Generations Forward. As co-learners, we are inspired to humbly turn to one another with a growth mindset in order to become more effective agents of change. Whether someone is 12 months old or 101 years young, we all benefit from engaging in courageous conversations that promote equity and inclusion.
Connecting Community strives to practice radical imagination to address equity and cultural learning. We challenge ourselves to explore new possibilities of thinking and connecting by sharing stories and experiences, asking critical questions, and applying research-based strategies to make more informed decisions.
Connecting Community provides workshops, events, and classes for local organizations and families. We enjoy collaborating with advocacy organizations including Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center and Generations Forward. As co-learners, we are inspired to humbly turn to one another with a growth mindset in order to become more effective agents of change. Whether someone is 12 months old or 101 years young, we all benefit from engaging in courageous conversations that promote equity and inclusion.
Our Team
Monica Koller, Consultant
Monica Koller has been having conversations about race since the age of 7, when she asked her father how to turn her skin lighter. With an early curiosity about cultures and diversity, Monica has held a passion for listening to stories and engaging in equity learning. As a mother of two young children, she loves sharing inclusive narratives that celebrate all ways of moving through the world. She has dedicated her past 7 years to working towards normalizing conversations about inclusion and race in Whatcom County.
Monica earned a MS in Counseling from San Francisco State University and has worked with under-served populations for over 15 years. She has worked in nonprofit, higher education, government, and coalition settings. An East Bay, CA native, Monica moved to WA in 2011. She enjoys facilitating intercultural learning through activities, conversations, and workshops with families and organizations. In 2017 she established Connecting Community, LLC and is excited to offer engaging new community programs.
In her free time, Monica loves sewing, basking in the sunshine, pretending to be various animals with her children, and collaborative jigsaw puzzling.
Monica earned a MS in Counseling from San Francisco State University and has worked with under-served populations for over 15 years. She has worked in nonprofit, higher education, government, and coalition settings. An East Bay, CA native, Monica moved to WA in 2011. She enjoys facilitating intercultural learning through activities, conversations, and workshops with families and organizations. In 2017 she established Connecting Community, LLC and is excited to offer engaging new community programs.
In her free time, Monica loves sewing, basking in the sunshine, pretending to be various animals with her children, and collaborative jigsaw puzzling.
Julie Mauermann, Consultant
Julie lived in the Chicago area as a child where she experienced her first awareness of whiteness and the racial divides that impact all of our lives. Her school experience included typical learning through a limited white lens, and her own journey to unravel this conditioning really began when, as a young adult, she moved to Whatcom County, the traditional lands of the Coast Salish people.
She has worked in the early childhood education field for 30 years, implementing programming in public school, community college, and public library settings with a focus on lifting up equity and increasing inclusion of all young children and their families. While working in the Ferndale School District she leveraged public and grant funding to increase access to early learning opportunities among families furthest from opportunity. Julie works at the Bellingham Library as a children’s library specialist, and also works as an equity and early childhood consultant. She is a senior trainer for the REACH Center and is dedicated to reflective and shared learning to address inequity.
Julie is on the board of the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force and Black Lives Matter Bellingham. At home, she loves sustainable gardening, dancing, reading, and many forms of creative and loose parts play with her grandchildren.
She has worked in the early childhood education field for 30 years, implementing programming in public school, community college, and public library settings with a focus on lifting up equity and increasing inclusion of all young children and their families. While working in the Ferndale School District she leveraged public and grant funding to increase access to early learning opportunities among families furthest from opportunity. Julie works at the Bellingham Library as a children’s library specialist, and also works as an equity and early childhood consultant. She is a senior trainer for the REACH Center and is dedicated to reflective and shared learning to address inequity.
Julie is on the board of the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force and Black Lives Matter Bellingham. At home, she loves sustainable gardening, dancing, reading, and many forms of creative and loose parts play with her grandchildren.
Keith Montoya, Families of Color Bellingham Coordinator
Keith grew up between the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, and Washington, spending summers fly fishing at nearby lakes and winters hitting the snowy slopes. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, earning a degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and developing a passion for working alongside communities in a positive and supportive capacity. Keith lives in Bellingham and loves to spend time hiking, skiing, and riding bikes with his family. As an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache tribe, racial equity, social justice, and decolonization are central in his life and work, and are issues that constantly inform the way he raises his kids. Keith is honored to be working with Connecting Community and to be supporting other families in building their capacity to promote diversity, inclusivity, equity, and compassion in the community.
Hannah Newell, Volunteer
Hannah Newell is a recent transplant to Bellingham. She grew up in Indonesia and the Philippines and spent summers in Arizona with the majority of her extended family. In 2017 she finished her Masters in Environmental Education at Western and is currently working with Wild Whatcom. Throughout her work in graduate school and with Wild Whatcom, Hannah began noticing a lack of productive and meaningful conversation with youth around race, gender, class, and religion. Knowing how connected social injustice is to environmental issues, she searched out a place to learn more. Her time with Connecting Community has provided her the opportunity to learn and practice having conversations with kids around issues of equity, privilege, and social and environmental issues while providing the tools to empower youth to become allies and leaders in creating a safe and equitable community.
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