{"id":211,"date":"2025-04-24T21:57:44","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T21:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erekani.org\/?page_id=211"},"modified":"2026-09-30T06:37:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T06:37:57","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/erekani.org\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our Story<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Erekani grew from a shared belief that connected communities and healthy ecosystems are interconnected. With a background in land conservation, community engagement, and systems-change facilitation, we create opportunities for conviviality in our communities and natural spaces. We created Erekani to gather across generations, spend meaningful time outdoors, connect and learn from one another, and to steward the landscapes that sustain us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our name carries part of that story. Erekani means \u201cto exist\u201d in Pur\u00e9pecha, an Indigenous language of Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico,<\/strong> where Maritza was born and where her family has lived for generations. We chose the name as a respectful homage to a place that has deeply shaped her story of identity, migration, and belonging, while acknowledging that its lands, language, and histories hold relationships much older than our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a family shaped by different places and experiences, we are interested in what it means to put down roots while remaining connected to where we come from. Like the monarch butterfly, fragile yet remarkably resilient, rooted in particular landscapes yet moving across borders, we believe movement and belonging can coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erekani is our way of exploring a question we continue to carry together: What does it mean to exist well\u2014in relationship with ourselves, one another, and the places that sustain us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t pretend to have one answer. Instead, we create opportunities to explore it together through connection, care, and contribution.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Meet the Team<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Maritza McCudden<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Owner \u00b7 Facilitator \u00b7 Connector<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

maritza@erekani.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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