About Us
Founded in 1988, OPIRG Brock is the Niagara-based chapter of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group.
OPIRG Brock works with students, service providers, community members, labour unions, artists and activists to build collaboration, connections, and communities of abundance. OPIRG Brock connects people to campus and community activism and services through our projects like the Niagara Free Store, the Anti-Racism Sponsorship Fund, the DisOrientation Guide to Niagara, and the Niagara Skills Network.
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Since being defunded in 2018, our ability to do this work and pay our staff comes from support from the community in the form of memberships, donations, and volunteers! To help us keep this work going, please visit the Support Us page.
Meet the Board & Staff
The Board of Directors are the governing body of OPIRG Brock. We currently have 2 staff members at OPIRG Brock - 1 unionized, part-time Volunteer, Training & Planning Coordinator and 1 contract bookkeeper.
Apply for an OPIRG Brock Membership!
Ana Maria (she/her)
Human Resources
Originally from Colombia, Ana Maria has been in Canada for over a year and is a current Business Administration-Marketing student at Niagara College.
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Ana's first approach with the community here in Niagara was the Niagara Free Store, where she has been a volunteer since 2021, where she continues to volunteer and hopes to get to know different ways to help the community!
Dani (they/them)
Bio coming soon!
Jules (she/they)
Bio coming soon!
Kostyn (he/they)
Board Facilitator
Kostyn is a white settler who lives and grew up on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Chonnonton, and Wendat Peoples in Niagara.
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Kostyn writes all kinds of things from songs, to poetry, to weird eco-philosophy/literary criticism, and is particularly interested in the intersections between ecology, anarchism, queerness, and anti/post/de-colonialism. Kostyn has a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Brock, and is always looking for ways to make sure “decolonization is not a metaphor” in, out, and beyond academe.
Vanessa (she/her)
Contract Bookkeeper
Kerry (they/them)
Volunteer, Planning & Training Coordinator Staff Member
Kerry is a community-educated queer and disabled family caregiver, with an academic background. Kerry is a white settler who grew up on the traditional lands of the Saugeen First Nation (Thornbury, ON), and lived for many years on unceded and unsurrended Algonquin territory (Ottawa, ON). While working on their undergrad, they worked with a range of campus and community activist groups, primarily focused on disability justice, affordable post-secondary education, labour rights, and climate justice.
Residing in Niagara since 2014, Kerry is most well known for working at Mahtay Cafe and OPIRG Brock, as well as being a contributor to The Sound. Kerry was also recently working on OUTniagara’s region-wide project, Informed, Inclusive, Indivisible: Collectively Advancing 2SLGBTQ+ Equality in Niagara+, and has been collecting and selling used books and zines through their online bookshop Dusk+Dawn Books!
Qianyin (she/her)
Bio coming soon!
Safer Space Policy
The work of OPIRG Brock is guided in part by our Safer Space Policy. We recognize that no space can be 100% safe, so this policy is for all of our Board, Staff, volunteers, members, action groups and community to comply with at any OPIRG Brock events, meetings and spaces to ensure that our spaces are as safe as they can be.
Read the main tenets of the policy below or in full here.