We are a small team of women working to create change and celebrate others who do the same. We look forward to learning more about you!
Jane Block
Jane Catherine McMenamin Block has been an environmental and social activist in Riverside City and County since 1970. She has played a leading role in the establishment of nature preserves including Box Springs Mountain Park/Reserve, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park, the Santa Rosa Plateau, and Indian Canyon, as well as helping to preserve Riverside’s Victoria Avenue and establish the City’s bike-way system. In the mid-1970s she assisted in establishing the Riverside County Commission on the Status of Women, Alternatives to Domestic Violence with its shelters for battered women, and the Riverside County Child Care Consortium. Jane also interviewed active women on the KUCR radio program Women’s Space, Women’s Place and established the UCR Women’s Resource Center.
Connie Ransom
Connie Ransom earned a BA from Reed College and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Using an artist’s problem-solving tools plus her ability to connect people she fights for art and music in the schools and helped lead the 2017 Riverside Women’s March. Connie uses her experience, her voice, her feet, and her financial resources to protect cultural, arts, educational, and environmental assets. Preserving and building a strong, safe, and attractive community where these assets thrive motivates Connie to action in Riverside and the Inland Empire. She is past President of both the Citizens University Committee and the Maloof Foundation. She strongly supports City, Regional and National leaders who share in her beliefs and goals.
Cati Porter
Cati Porter is an arts administrator, poet, and essayist. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. When she was a teenager visiting Washington D.C., she happened upon a PETA demonstration on the National Mall, sparking a life-long interest in standing up for what is right. You can find her on the web at www.catiporter.com.
Deborah Wong
Deborah Wong is an ethnomusicologist and Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside, known for her scholarship on Asian American performance. In Riverside, she was drawn to work on police brutality after the death of Tyisha Miller in 1998 and has long been involved in the Riverside Coalition for Police Accountability. She believes in the importance of grassroots action, and she has learned that those who show up make the decisions…. and can make the difference.
Photo by Bernard Gordillo Brockmann
Nicolette Rohr
Nicolette Rohr was born and raised in Riverside and earned a Ph.D. in History from UCR in 2018. She has worked on several public history projects in Riverside. As a specialist in popular music and the 1960s, Nicolette has brought her research home with projects on the folk revival in Riverside and the book While We’re Here, We Should Sing (Inlandia, 2016), written with Riverside singing group the Why Nots (including Nicolette’s grandmother). She is co-founder and current chair of the Riverside chapter of Brady United Against Gun Violence and volunteers with Glocally Connected, the Riverside Art Museum, and Eden Lutheran Church.
Staff
Andrea Decker joined RWCC during the summer of 2020. She edits the website and transcribes interviews. You can contact her with comments, suggestions, or recommendations using the contact page here.
Riverside Women Creating Change 