All-In Call with special guests Sen. Bernie Sanders and Aru Shiney-Ajay

Senator Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is a U.S. Senator from Vermont. In 2006, he was elected to the U.S. Senate after 16 years as Vermont’s sole congressman in the House of Representatives. Bernie is now serving his fourth term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in 2024 with 63 percent of the vote. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he attended James Madison High School, Brooklyn College, and the University of Chicago. After graduating, he moved to Vermont where he worked as a carpenter and documentary filmmaker. In 1981, he was elected as mayor of Burlington, the state’s largest city, by a mere 10 votes.

As mayor, Bernie’s leadership helped transform Burlington into one of the most exciting and livable small cities in America. Under his administration, the city made major strides in affordable housing, progressive taxation, environmental protection, child care, women’s rights, youth programs and the arts.

In Congress, Bernie has fought tirelessly for working families, focusing on the shrinking middle class and growing gap between the rich and everyone else. Bernie has been called a “practical and successful legislator” and he was dubbed the “amendment king” in the House of Representatives for passing more amendments than any other member of Congress. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Bernie worked across the aisle to “bridge Washington’s toxic partisan divide and cut one of the most significant deals in years.” In 2015, Democratic leadership tapped Bernie to serve as the caucus’ ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.

Bernie lives in Burlington, Vermont with his wife Jane. He has four children and seven grandchildren.

Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement

Aru Shiney-Ajay is the executive director of Sunrise, a movement of young people working to stop the climate crisis and win a Green New Deal. Aru has been an organizer in the youth climate movement for six years, since she was 19, during which she has trained thousands of young people on organizing skills and political education, redesigned Sunrise’s strategy and structure, and helped lead national and local campaigns for climate justice. Aru currently lives in her hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Bill McKibben, co-founder of Third Act

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written more than twenty books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, and his latest book is Here Comes The Sun.

Akaya Windwood, Third Act Lead Advisor

Akaya facilitates transformation. She advises, trains, and consults on how change happens individually, organizationally, and societally. She is on faculty for the Just Economy Institute, and is founder of the New Universal, which centers human wisdom in the wisdom of brown womxn. She was President of Rockwood Leadership Institute for many years, and directs the Thriving Roots Fund, which supports young womxn’s finance and philanthropic learning and leadership based in generosity and interconnectedness. She received the 2020 Vision Award from Middlebury College and was one of Conscious Company’s 30 World Changing Women of 2018. She is an Ella Award recipient from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and served on the Alameda County Human Rights Commission. Akaya is deeply committed to working for a fair and equitable global society while infusing a sense of purpose, delight, and wonder into everything we do.