Staff
Sarita - co-founder and ecosystem connector
Sarah Nuñez, is a cultural worker who weaves testimonios, art, herbs, and movement-building throughout her work, teaching, and organizing. A resident of Asheville, NC, Sarah loves building positive people power in the South. Her current projects include growing herbs and flowers, teaching, writing, consulting, and bringing healing practices, art, and organizing modalities as tools for transformation to groups across the country.
mari - co-founder and member of aflorar advisory council
When asked to join in the adventure of creating Aflorar during 2020 mari mujica jumped at the opportunity and began an incredible journey with the land she and her husband own in Shelbyville, Kentucky. In her younger years, mari explored a variety of career paths as a college adjunct professor, diversity consultant, violence prevention and after school program facilitator. All of these eventually led to developing as an artist, healing and yoga student, facilitator and instructor. Currently mari’s art and healing practice are intrinsically interconnected with the herbs she tends to and the land where they grow.
Cam - story catcher and organizer
Spends time writing, collecting stories, sharing, and creating.
She also loves taking pictures and learning about herbs more and more each day.
Isabella - organizer
Isabella Clark has been with Aflorar Herb Collective’s Asheville crew since Summer 2023, when they met Sarah Nuñez through a BIPOC farming apprenticeship program. Under Sarah's mentorship, Isabella discovered the healing power of herbal medicine and community care through processing herbs, tending the garden, and packing care kits
Furry Friends of Aflorar
Willowbea Esmeralda Che Nuñez came into the Aflorar family in 2020. Her family extends from the blue ridge mountains to the bluegrass of Kentucky. She loves playing on the farm and eating lemon grass. Without her our crew wouldn't be the same!
Tango Hammond-Mujica
Tuff (Tuffy)
The cutest baby in the whole wide world. A caramel delight who loves rolling in the grass and sniffing in all our boxes in the herb hub. She's been in the family since summer 2025 and added so much love, cuddles, and sweetness to our lives.
Advisory Committee of Aflorar
Teresa
Teresa is a social justice advocate and community builder, originally from Brooklyn, NY, born in the Dominican Republic, and has been setting down roots in Louisville since 2012. She has spent over a decade working in civic engagement, government, policy, and on various community initiatives.
As a member of the herb collective’s advisory council, Teresa helps grow, harvest, make care kits, and create healing spaces for the community, supporting Aflorar’s mission of cultivating connection and collective care through plants and community gatherings. Joining the collective has supported her own healing journey, and she hopes to support others in theirs, embodying bell hooks’ idea that “healing is an act of communion.”
Paulina
Paulina (she/her/ella/they/them/elle) is a therapist and curandera with roots in Mexico and a deep connection to the mountains of North Carolina. As the founder and therapist at Alegría Counseling—alegría meaning joy in Spanish—she embraces joy as an act of resistance and an essential element toward healing and liberation.
Her work is informed by her lived experience and intersecting identities navigating the delicate balance between life’s breathtaking beauty and man-made injustice. She brings over a decade of experience in equity and inclusion, and two decades of community work, spanning nonprofits and local government.