Staff: Tosha Sketo

Tosha was born in Alabama and spent their formative years working on a large farm. They received their B.S. in psychology from the University of Florida. After a post-grad stint as a government reporter for newspapers, they moved to the Pacific Northwest in the pursuit of nature adventures and their purpose.

They started volunteering for conservation organizations, which culminated in their role as Chair of the Oregon Zoo’s Environmental Conservation Outreach Team. In 2019, with the support of the community they had developed over the previous nine years of volunteer work, Tosha founded a free community art program. The mission of CREATE Community is to provide an inclusive space for all people to connect and create. Within 24 hours of the initial COVID lockdown, a family that had been bringing their kids to CREATE Community hired Tosha to homeschool and care for their 4 and 6-year-olds.

That experience led them to several additional roles caring for and educating kids. And all these years later, they couldn’t be more grateful because they found my purpose in that work. Working as a mentor for Friends of the Children-Portland, they feel like everything they have experienced and grown from has come full circle.

While Tosha loved all the families I worked with, they always desired to impact kids that are dealing with the kinds of challenges they faced growing up in a home that was impacted by poverty, abuse, and mental illness. They feel blessed to have been able to overcome and grow from those challenges and cherish the opportunity to empower and support youth and caregivers dealing with those obstacles and others that their privilege has protected them from.