The people behind
the mission

Twakenna grew up in the country, where she fell in love with agriculture—growing fresh vegetables in the garden right at home. That early connection to the land never left her. She went on to build a multidisciplinary background spanning Business Administration, Healthcare, and Information Technology—skills she now channels into every layer of TL&C Farmland’s operations, from program design to financial sustainability.

But the mission became personal long before the organization existed. Watching children she loved enter the foster care system, and seeing too many young people cycle through courtrooms instead of classrooms, Twakenna knew something had to change. She didn’t wait for someone else to build it. TL&C Farmland is the farm she’d want every foster youth to have access to—a place where they learn to grow food, develop real skills, and build a future that belongs entirely to them.

Leticia grew up in the city of Atlanta, GA, where she watched young people—some barely teenagers—end up on the streets with nowhere to go and no one fighting for them. That image stayed with her. She pursued degrees in Finance and Criminal Justice, not just to understand how money and systems work, but to understand exactly where they fail the people who need them most.

At TL&C Farmland, Leticia brings that knowledge to bear on the hard questions: how do you fund a residential farm long-term, how do you navigate the systems that follow foster youth into adulthood, and how do you build an organization with enough structure to outlast its founders? Her answer is simple—you build it right the first time, with intention, and you don’t cut corners on the people at the center of it.