Linda Pulley Freeman combines her specialized training in environmental and chemical engineering with her deep ministerial commitment as she serves humanitarian mission fields at home and abroad. She is the Executive Director of the Peacemaker Family Center (PFC) at Trinity Church in Miami Gardens, Florida, which has been awarded over $67 million in federal, state, and local social service funding since she began in 1999. Linda became a National Geographic Explorer in May 2019.
The PFC funding levels are an accomplishment, but the dollar amounts only tell a very limited part of Linda’s story in her time at PFC. She is the co-developer of Children of Inmates, Inc., a program featured in Time Magazine and the New York Times, which seeks to restore and rebuild the bonds between children with their incarcerated parents. She oversees the PlanBe_ program, providing teen pregnancy prevention education to at risk youth in Miami-Dade County, Florida. She created KidPower Organics, an organic body treatment line incorporating goat milk. She served the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University as the Community Fellow in its Healthy Policy Analysis Academy; serves on the board of MAP International, an agency that provides medicines and medical supplies throughout the world; and also serves on the Board of His House Children’s Home. Most recently, Linda created the GEN2050®️ Program. GEN2050®️ is an innovative youth development program for students in 6th through 12th grade living in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Established in 2017, this year-round program engages students in intensive learning environments designed to inspire and prepare them for entrepreneurship, self-leadership, environmental stewardship, and STEAM. GEN2050®️ youth are the people, who in the year 2050, will be the leaders of our world locally, nationally, and internationally. The National Geographic Society awarded Linda with an Explorer Grant in May 2019 in support of the GEN2050®️ Bat, Bees, and Butterflies Project. As a National Geographic Explorer, Linda collaborated with Patch of Heaven Sanctuary Executive Director, Frederick Hubbard, and FitKids of America Executive Director, Rhonda Smith, to establish the Environmental Awareness Academy, Inc. (EAA) in 2019. The vision for the Environmental Awareness Academy is to empower youth around the world to become more resilient and self-sufficient through environmental education. This program blends the best of GEN2050 with a program focus on children and youth most at risk for migration to the United States due to the lack of educational, medical, and nutritional resources in their home country, as well as young people who are seeking asylum in the United States. EAA has begun a pilot program in Honduras.
Internationally, Linda has participated as a team member or team leader on thirty-six humanitarian aid projects in seventeen countries. Six of these projects have taken place in Cambodia, serving with Teen Challenge Cambodia and Cambodian Care Ministries. She and her team have built a bio-gas generator, toilet facilities, and a school; implemented hand washing programs; established medical treatment protocols; and created a goat bank. In addition, one of her teams provided 300+ pairs of “The Shoe that Grows” to Cambodian children who previously did not have adequate footwear and were therefore more susceptible to disease. Currently, Linda is establishing a community-based, youth development project in Canterranas, Fransisco Morazán, Honduras with the Environmental Awareness Academy.
Linda has been married to her husband, David, for 36 years. They enjoy life in South Florida with their family.
(Portrait of Linda: Gabriel Rivera, July 2019, Redland, Florida)
