vaplp@engageva.org
Application due Friday, March 13
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Application due Friday, March 13 ❁
VAPLP Staff
Program Stewards
Our Program Stewards are our VCET staff members who support the program participants from applications until graduation.
Nico Climaco (they/any)
is a Program Steward and Facilitator with VAPLP. They currently reside on occupied Piscataway land (Washington, DC), and joined VCET in January of 2022. As the Director of Leadership Development, they primarily support VAPLP, the Staff of Color Roundtable, ongoing trainings and gatherings, and the organization’s network-wide VCET Summit. Nico graduated from James Madison University (go Dukes~) and LIFT Economy’s Next Economy MBA program.
Passionate about social justice, collective liberation, and community solutions, Nico finds home in collective and visionary spaces woven together by queer and trans people. Nico learned some of their most important political lessons outside the classroom and was first politicized by the work of the Louisville Project in policy debate, as well as through their own Filipinx and Puerto Rican diaspora.
As a facilitator, Nico draws on the teachings of Paulo Freire and bell hooks with a lens of popular education and experiential learning. They are invested in co-creating loving spaces and considers relationships & community to be the basis of their work. Outside of the 9-5, Nico works with the Fairfax County NAACP and serves on the board of Rising Organizers. Nico’s favorite pop culture icons are Gizmo the gremlin, HIM from Powerpuff Girls, and the nerds from nerds candy.
Harmony Pierce (she/they)
is a Program Steward with VAPLP and Training Operations Associate with the Virginia Civic Engagement Table, and supports logistics and operations for our capacity building programs and trainings.
With their BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, they have a focus on education as a liberating practice and transformative justice within our communities. Dedicated to the ways in which we can create webs of care that build on and strengthen our networks, their experience has been with multiple organizations finding community based solutions to addressing systemic injustices, particularly within communities most affected by the carceral system and food and housing insecurity. Inspired by Black abolition feminism and queer liberation theory, they are excited to continue expanding their ideas on what our roles as individuals are, within and outside of, a non-profit space.
Harmony now lives in Richmond, and is invested in the mutual aid work within the city. Outside of VCET, they also work as the Food Coordinator and Community Cook Day Organizer with RVA Community Fridges, a mutual aid organization fostering collaboration, support, and direct services to accessible food in the Greater Richmond area. As a human, Harmony believes joy can be revolutionary. They love being in nature, roller skating, biking around the city, reading memoirs, and watching reality TV (we all need balance in our lives).
Facilitators
Our facilitators are seasoned practitioners in social justice work. Each retreat you will meet and learn with two new facilitators, specialized in that retreat’s topic. After each retreat, you’ll have access to coaching office hours with two additional coaches with expertise in that retreat’s topic.
Facilitators for Pod 12 will be posted here in February, 2026
Selections Committee
The Selections Committee is composed of VAPLP alumni and program staff. This team will be reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, and ultimately determining the participants of Pod 12.
Selection Committee Members for Pod 12 will be posted here in January, 2026