About SNE cares
SNE Cares is a community-based wellness and creative healing non-profit organization rooted in Oakland. We design and lead programs that bring together food justice, arts education, mental health support, and cultural wellness to strengthen community care from the ground up.
Our work is centered in neighborhoods where access to consistent enrichment, wellness resources, and creative spaces has been limited. We respond by creating hands-on programs that are accessible, relationship-centered, and deeply rooted in lived experience.
Through workshops in gardening, cooking, sewing, herbal wellness, and creative arts, we support youth, families, and intergenerational communities in reconnecting to land, culture, and self-expression. Each program is designed to build practical skills while also supporting emotional wellbeing, confidence, and collective healing.
A core principle of SNE Cares is honoring cultural identity. We do not replace traditions; we build on them. Participants are encouraged to bring their lived knowledge, cultural practices, and creativity into every space as part of the learning process.
At its heart, SNE Cares is about creating spaces where communities can learn, heal, and grow together through care, creativity, and connection.
Our mission & Vision
SNE Cares imagines a future rooted in sustainability, equity, and mutual support; where community-led care is not the exception, but the norm.
Our mission is to nurture a culture of care by creating inclusive spaces where people feel seen, supported, and empowered. Through free programs, workshops, and events, we reduce barriers to access by providing tools, resources, and opportunities that support collective well-being and community resilience.
Our WHy.
SNE Cares was born from the everyday realities of Oakland communities; where families are creative, resourceful, and deeply rooted in culture, but often face limited access to consistent wellness resources, safe creative spaces, and affordable healthy food.
In these neighborhoods, we see both the weight of disinvestment and the strength of community care. We see people already practicing healing in their own ways; through food, through art, through tradition, through looking out for one another. SNE Cares exists to build on that foundation.
We create spaces where people can slow down, get their hands in soil, cook familiar foods in healthier ways, pick up a needle and thread, or sit in circle and share stories. Our programs blend gardening, cooking, sewing, herbal wellness, and creative arts as tools for both practical learning and emotional restoration.
At the center of it all is a belief that culture is medicine. We do not replace traditions; we honor them. We support people in holding onto their cultural foods, practices, and identity while also exploring new ways to care for their health and wellbeing.
SNE Cares is not just a nonprofit; it is a growing network of care. A place where youth, families, and elders can learn together, heal together, and build something lasting through creativity, land, and collective support.
It is about remembering what communities already know; and making space for it to thrive. Each one reach one, each one teach one.
About Our Founders
Princess Modupe Alli
Founder & Executive Director
Princess Modupe Alli is an Oakland native who leads with love, authenticity, and deep community care. She founded SNE Cares in 2021 at the age of 24 after witnessing how hard COVID hit her community; especially kids and their families trying to find their footing again. What started as gardening with neighborhood kids in her low-income apartment building quickly grew into something much bigger. On September 9th, 2022, SNE Cares officially became a nonprofit.
SNE Cares is proudly youth-led. Every program beyond gardening exists because the youth asked for it. Princess believes she was created to be the adult she never had and to offer access, care, and opportunities to those who may not have been given the choice otherwise, just like her.
Princess Modupe is also the creative force behind Second Nature Elements, a Certified Green Business rooted in sustainability, self-healing, and artistic expression; and the root of it all. Second Nature Elements was born during her own journey out of depression, when she discovered plants and learned firsthand their powerful impact on mental health. She openly shares that without plants, she doesn’t believe she’d be alive today.
As an artist, mental health awareness advocate, and environmental steward, Princess transforms recycled materials into soulful art while uplifting planting and crafting as forms of therapy and self-care. Through her work, she inspires communities to reconnect with nature, embrace eco-conscious living, and find healing through creativity.
Princess continues to build spaces where care is a culture, youth lead the way, and everyone has room to grow.
Trayvon “Tray” Smith
Trayvon “Tray” Smith is a community builder, nonprofit leader, and creative strategist committed to advancing equity, self-determination, and opportunity through education, creativity, and collective care. As Co-Founder and Board President of SNE Cares, Tray brings both lived experience and visionary leadership to an organization rooted in empowering individuals and strengthening communities from the inside out.
Tray’s leadership style is collaborative, values-driven, and deeply rooted in community care. He believes that the most sustainable solutions come from within communities themselves, and that nonprofits must be accountable not only to funders, but to the people they serve. This philosophy guides Tray’s approach to program design, fundraising, and board leadership - balancing big-picture vision with thoughtful, day-to-day stewardship.
Beyond formal programming, Tray has a Bachelors Degree in Psychology. He’s passionate about storytelling, branding, and communications as tools for advocacy and connection. Tray’s journey with SNE Cares started in 2023 and has guided the organizational voice and public presence to reflect authenticity, warmth, and impact - ensuring the organization’s work is visible, accessible, and grounded in real community experiences.
At the heart of Tray’s work is a simple but powerful commitment: to create spaces where people feel seen, supported, and capable of building something meaningful for themselves and others.
Through SNE Cares, Trayvon “Tray” Smith continues to champion a future where creativity, education, and mutual care are not luxuries, but shared community resources that belong to everyone.
Co-Founder & board president
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