The Sanitary Tortilla Factory via it’s newly formed non profit is excited to be the 2025 recipient of a grant from the Youth Civic Infrastructure Fund (YCIF).
GOLDEN FORWARD’s non profit organizational history is closely intertwined with the Sanitary Tortilla Factory (STF). sheri crider created the Sanitary Tortilla Factory in 2014. The artist-led community space stands squarely at the intersection of artistic practice and social justice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This organization has re-imagined how arts spaces can drive systemic change and community transformation. What began as a response to institutional barriers in the traditional art world has evolved into a pioneering model for arts-based social intervention, with a particular focus on justice-involved individuals, LGBTQ+ creators, and artists of color.
The Youth Civic Infrastructure Fund provides a powerful mechanism to connect the learning that young people are doing with the future prosperity of their communities. Schools become connected, active elements of the community’s “civic infrastructure”.
GOLDEN Forward
Most significantly, our work with incarcerated artists has revealed a powerful truth: artistic practice can be a transformative tool for rehabilitation and personal reconstruction. In the Metropolitan Detention Center, our programs have shown that when individuals engage in creative expression, they develop not just artistic skills, but essential life capabilities—emotional regulation, critical thinking, and goal-setting.
Drawing from a decade of evidence-based success and our team’s lived experience with the justice system, we’re now poised to launch our most ambitious initiatives: New Mexico’s first arts-based reentry program, GOLDEN. This innovative project will bridge the critical gap between in-facility arts programming and post-release success, creating a sustainable model for creative practice as a catalyst for rehabilitation and community reintegration.
Lead Artists
sheri crider has been working with Gordon Bernell Charter School students at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) and its community campus on visual and performing art that is connected to mental health. Workshops build out the student’s abilities to honor the complicated, often silent emotional states we all experience. This is especially true for those of us who are facing incarceration, precarious housing and living situations. The visual art modules we have co-created are focused on creating safe emotional spaces to deepen our relationships with ourselves, peers and staff members while we collectively develop coping skills to manage current challenges. Art has been a particularly powerful tool for visualizing coping strategies and is a blue print for the transformation the justice system. Healing generational trauma and creating the unique support systems are top priorities for returning citizens success in the community.
Amanda Dannáe Romero works with students MDC creating music and art focused on collaborative prompts about how students feel they could best be supported by their communities, what makes them happy, and what resources they feel would best support their mental health. These prompts and artistic exercises allow for students to gather and expand upon resources that would benefit them both while experiencing incarceration and while transitioning back into the community after release.
The live music created at MDC is an opportunity for students to learn first hand- song structure, music theory, songwriting, beat making. Larger conversations on music and how it relates to mental health while developing songwriting skills is a win for everyone involved. The songs are a mixture of original beats and sampled beats and tracks along with original freestyle rapping and written raps.
Board of Directors
Alayne Ballantine is a poet and multifaceted visual artist who creates work around her time spent incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the community impact of over policing in America. She was born in Albuquerque, NM and lives there today. Her works often incorporates both metal fabrication and electronic components, both of which are skills that she learned while working for free in prison. She organizes with different abolitionist groups in New Mexico, and has multiple works published on the topic of the prison-industrial complex and the experiences of those who have lived inside of it.
Janelle Johnson is a strategic implementation consultant and co-owner of a local consulting firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her master’s degree in political science from the University of New Mexico and has years of experience working with governments, private companies and nonprofit organizations. As a formerly incarcerated and addicted youth, and having grown up with an incarcerated parent, Janelle strongly believes in restorative justice and aims to center her life and work in compassion and healing – especially for queer and BIPOC youth. Janelle has lived in Albuquerque for over 20 years, is the proud mom of two kids and enthusiastic supporter of local artists here in her community.
Moneka Stevens is a loving mother dedicated to fostering positive youth development and supporting young people as leaders in their communities. As a community organizer with Millions for Prisoners NM, she raises awareness about the prison industrial complex’s historical and systemic impact while advocating for abolition, including the elimination of the loophole in the 13th amendment.
Moneka contributed to launching ABQ Mutual Aid, focused on creating communities of care, food justice and supporting our unsheltered neighbors. She is also involved in the Albuquerque Justice for Youth Community Collaborative, reimagining the juvenile justice system by centering the voices and experiences of young people and families directly impacted by incarceration.
As a member of New Mexico’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, Moneka works to address the barriers resulting in the incarceration of young people and advocates for equitable opportunities for all. Guided by the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together,” Moneka leads with love and collaboration, striving for a future where young people and their communities are free from systems of oppression.
Jonathan Tyrrell (he/him) couldn’t be prouder and more grateful to serve as a founding board member of the Goldens Coalition. In his day job, he works as a program manager for the Next 100 Coalition, a national organization committed to delivering environmental justice outcomes for people of color. He also serves on the Next Generation Advisory Council to The National Parks Conservation Association.
With experience as environmental educator, former theater kid, and professional facilitator, he brings a multidisciplinary approach to his professional pursuits, centered in building relationships across perspectives to deliver equitable and just outcomes. Similarly, he maintains a holistic approach to his extracurriculars, whether that be frequenting DIY art and music venues in the southwest, getting outdoors to local green spaces and state or federal public lands or parks, or breaking bread and spending quality time, always in the cradle of community – his dearest family and friends.
He currently resides in Denver, Colorado and has a Bachelor of Science in biology and psychology with a minor in chemistry from the University of New Mexico.
