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Tracey Prince (Mound Bayou, MS) - Tracey Prince, a graduate of Jackson State University with a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies, leads BDT Housing Services Enterprise, a community development organization focused on empowering residents and strengthening local infrastructure to build long-term, self-sustaining change. Tracey has over thirty years of experience with 20 years in management and ten years of supervisory experience. Tracey has a certification from the International Economic Development Council Tennessee Basic Economic Development Course from the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Services, University of Oklahoma School of Economic Development Institute; and for years has held a loan originator in AR, AL, MS, LA, TN. Her RDLN Field Project will focus on restoring IT Montgomery Home, a National Historic Register site in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
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Tandelyn Daniel (Duluth, GA) - Tandelyn Daniel, brings over a decade of experience in membership strategy, communications, and stakeholder engagement across nonprofit and mission-driven organizations. In 2019, she founded the Georgia Hospitality & Foodservice Network to support restaurant owners and operators during COVID-19 industry disruption. Prior to that, she served as Senior Membership Development Executive at the Georgia Restaurant Association, supporting membership growth and engagement efforts across franchises, airport concessionaires, and independent operators throughout Georgia.
In 2025 she joined the Rural Coalition to serve as the historic organization’s Director of Communications and External Relations after spending nearly 4 years working for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund as the Director of Communications and Member Relations.
Based in Duluth, Georgia, Tandelyn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations from the University of Georgia.
Her Rural Development Leadership Network (RDLN) Field Project focuses on developing a centralized, low-tech communication and outreach system to improve awareness of and access to resources for Black and Latino farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers in rural communities across Georgia, Florida, and Alabama through her sponsoring organization, the Rural Coalition.
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Akymia Hunter (Abbeville, SC) - Akymia Hunter is a community educator, farmer, and social impact professional dedicated to fostering economic resilience and food sovereignty through community-driven development. Her extensive leadership career includes serving as the Program Director of The Diaper Bank, where she coordinated the first statewide distribution of diapers in the United States. Drawing on this background in large-scale social impact, Akymia now applies these same principles of systems change to regenerative agriculture. Today, as the founder of The Blacksence, Earth Medicine Farms, and Mae's Garden Project, Akymia integrates this nonprofit expertise with regenerative agriculture to create local platforms for wellness and empowerment. Her work is anchored in the reclamation of Earth Medicine Farms—land purchased by her great-grandparents in the 1950s and held as a legacy despite historical systemic barriers. As her RDLN Field project, Akymia will focus on her birthplace Abbeville County, SC addressing critical gaps in food access and local infrastructure through developing a community hub featuring a farm store, kitchen, and gathering space. Her work is grounded in the belief that sustainable solutions emerge when communities are equipped with essential resources and the reclamation of ancestral knowledge that has sustained generations.
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