Youth Program: Community of Mentors with Kyle Trefny
Bioneers is inherently a community of mentors – rooted in learning, teaching and sharing ideas. The “Community of Mentors” space at Bioneers is an intergenerational container that offers youth the opportunity to be in small group mentoring sessions with Bioneers presenters. Hosts from Weaving Earth work with the presenters to create an interactive space to dialogue and share their life experience with youth who are seeking guidance on their path to activism. We are thrilled to welcome organizer, artist, wildland firefighter, 2025 Brower Youth awardee, and co-founder of FireGeneration Collaborative (FireGen), Kyle Trefny to the Community of Mentors space this year to be in mutual peer mentorship and dialogue around the multiple dimensions of heat and fire this generation experiences.
Upstairs in The Marsh
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GOOGLE CALENDAR OUTLOOK APPLE CALENDAR / ICSMarch 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm
Panelists
Kyle Trefny
Co-Founder
FireGeneration Collaborative (FireGen)
Kyle Trefny is an organizer, artist, wildland firefighter, and co-founder of FireGeneration Collaborative (FireGen), which started out with a GoFundMe campaign and a petition and became a dynamic, influential youth-led organization that has helped bring about the historic involvement of firefighters and Indigenous fire management practitioners in governance processes and engaged hundreds of young people in fire research. A faculty research assistant at the University of Oregon’s Ecosystem Workforce Program, Kyle is also active in movements for Indigenous sovereignty, queer rights, and climate justice and was a recipient of a 2025 Brower Youth Award.
justine epstein
Board Member
Weaving Earth
justine epstein, an organizer, facilitator, and rites of passage guide whose work focuses on transforming legacies and systems of ancestral harm through ancestral/cultural healing, wealth redistribution, social justice organizing, embodiment and deep ecology, is the founder of The Mending Circle as well as a board member and graduate of Weaving Earth's adult program.
Sam Burris DeBoskey
