Troy serves as the Youth Director, leading our After School Program and Summer Youth Program.  Troy is a graduate of School of Urban Missions (SUM) right here in East Oakland.  He serves as the Worship Leader at the Urban Church in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of East Oakland, where he also preaches on a regular basis.  Troy and his wife Selene have two young children, Israel and Janet, and reside in East Oakland.  Troy loves working with young people and plans on doing it for a long time.

Andrea manages to find time to care for three young children and manage much of the behind the scenes administrative work for Shalom of Oakland.  She is a graduate of Simpson University with a degree in Liberal Studies for Elementary Education where she was a small college All American basketball player.  Before having three children, Andrea worked as an Admistrative Assistant in the finance industry for several years at California Financial Advisors in San Ramon.

Demariae Smith is one of our Youth Interns.  He is a leader in our After School Program, and in addition to assisting children with their homework, he oversees our vegetable garden.  Demariae is a junior at Oakland High School, and he enjoys working with children and playing basketball.  He has a bright future ahead of him.

Kayla Taron grew up in the house her dad built in Northwest Washington.  She likes color and the sound of good words.  She graduated in 2009 with a BA in Fine Art from Western Washington University.  In October 2010 she moved to the Bay Area because she was looking for God’s plan and like-minded artists, but God had something unexpected in mind.  She ended up as an intern at Oakland's Regeneration Church, and through that found Shalom of Oakland.  Little kids are among some of her favorite human beings.  She hopes to use this internship to grow in God and bless the children of Oakland in some way.  Funny/potentially very annoying habit: imitating obscure accents and turning sentences into songs.  Guilty pleasure: rereading Lloyd Alexander books.

Nate and his family moved to Oakland in the summer of 2008 to launch Shalom of Oakland.  He was inspired by the creative work he had been doing with ReIMAGINE in San Francisco and felt compelled to continue to teach people to follow the ways of Jesus, this time in East Oakland. Before that Nate served as the Pastor of Student Ministries at Creekside Community Church in the East Bay for several years.  He graduated with a degree in General Ministry from Simpson University.  In his spare time he enjoys playing basketball and learning how to DJ on his turntables.  Nate lives in East Oakland with his wife Andrea and young children: Kayla, Chase and Ava.