About Us
The Garden Within is a sanctuary for healing and empowerment, where survivors of trauma can rediscover their strength and reclaim their futures. Founded as a transformative extension of Survivor Ventures, our space merges holistic wellness with economic opportunity, offering trauma-responsive care in a supportive, survivor-led environment. We honor the journey of every individual who walks through our doors, providing a nurturing space where mind, body, and spirit find balance. Through ancient healing traditions and modern therapeutic approaches—including massage therapy, movement therapy, art therapy, and breathwork—we guide survivors toward wholeness, resilience, and self-discovery.
More than a wellness center, The Garden Within is a community where healing and entrepreneurship go hand in hand. Survivors trained through our Survivors to Entrepreneurs (S2E) program gain hands-on experience, certifications, and mentorship, enabling them to build sustainable careers in holistic care. Our Tampa-based center not only offers a range of metaphysical and wellness products but also serves as a hub for trauma-informed care, connecting survivors with accessible healing resources both in-person and through telehealth services. As we grow, we remain committed to breaking cycles of exploitation and fostering a future where survivors thrive—because everything needed to heal is already within.
Meet The Team
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Tiffany McGee, Founder, The Garden Within
Tiffany McGee is the founder of The Garden Within, a social enterprise supporting trafficking survivors by selling you holistic care products and services to support physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. Drawn to the shop at a moment of transition, Tiffany was inspired to preserve its sacred energy and grow it into a safe, nurturing space that empowers survivors of human trafficking through healing and economic opportunity.
Tiffany’s path into the healing arts is nontraditional—shaped by personal and family experiences with trauma, loss, and the need to reclaim wellness outside of conventional medicine. Through the use of herbalism and energetics, Tiffany experienced profound healing that inspired her to bring these restorative modalities to others seeking alternatives to chemicals, pills, and surgeries.
A seasoned advocate and visionary leader, Tiffany founded Survivor Ventures in 2018, a nonprofit that supports trafficking survivors in achieving economic independence. With more than two decades of experience in counter-trafficking work, she previously served as a Department of Defense Intelligence Analyst on anti-trafficking task forces at U.S. Embassies across Africa and Europe.
A graduate of the University of Cape Town, Ohio University, and the American Military University, Tiffany holds degrees in Peace Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, Gender and Transformation, and International Affairs.
Elena Young, Creative Expression Services
Elena is a 25 year old lifelong artist, who believes that healing begins when individuals feel seen, heard, and free to express themselves. She obtained her art therapy practitioner certificate and has an extensive background in art of many forms, with her sessions no art skills are required, just an open mind and readiness to start your healing journey. As a survivor, mother, and lifelong artist, she understands the profound power creativity holds in restoring what life has broken. She offers trauma-informed, nature-based individual sessions rooted in compassion and lived experience. Her approach is especially meaningful for those who haven’t found healing through traditional methods. With a commitment to creating a safe, supportive, and creatively empowering environment, she walks alongside each person on their unique path toward healing.
Jennifer Holmes, Creative Healing for the Mind, Body & Soul
Jennifer Holmes is a trauma-informed holistic practitioner who holds certificates in Holistic Practice, Art Therapy, Healing Touch (Level 1), and other wellness-based approaches. A survivor leader and advocate, she brings lived experience, spiritual grounding, and a heart for service into every space she facilitates. Her mission is to uplift, support, and help break generational cycles through creative and community-rooted care.
Creative Healing offers art-based wellness and holistic expression workshops for anyone seeking growth, balance, or healing. This is sacred work, open to all, no experience is ever required to participate.
Offerings may include creative expression, journaling, herbal wisdom, somatic awareness, mindfulness, empowerment practices, and more. All workshops are non-clinical, trauma-informed, and held in supportive spaces, online, outdoors, or in the community.
Each person is honored as the expert of their own journey. The space simply supports that process with care, creativity, and deep respect.
Quintina Sonnie, Holistic Care Director
Known as the Somatic Alchemist, Quintina's lived experience and spiritual gifts led her to body based healing and energy work. She has been guiding survivors in their healing journeys since 2017 using practical tools based on ancient techniques curated for the modern world. After realizing that the clinical options weren't giving her the transformation she expected, she turned to somatic work. While in a breathwork session for herself, a message from Spirit told her that body based healing would transform the lives of complex trauma survivors. In an effort to make healing and holistic techniques more accessible, she has partnered with Survivor Ventures to offer her unique blend of somatic services. She specializes in Breathwork, EFT (Tapping), Human Design, and Tarot with other certifications including Healing Touch, Manifestation, Reiki 1, and Trauma Resolution. A Priestess of the Lotus, Cat Mom, full time Barefooter and lover of lattes, Quintina's unique approach and grounded energy will guide you back to your own sacred power.
Sequoia, Herbalist
Sequoia is a 21 year old herbalist who specializes in biomedical health & nutrition. She has spent the last 4 years in self-study over holistic healing practices, primal nutrition, medicinal herbs, and native flora. She seeks to bring the body back to its ancient alignment, returning to the inherent health given to us before modern maladies. She is currently a student at Traditions School of Herbal Studies and she will graduate as a clinical herbalist. For now, she teaches and offers her services in a unique manner that combines the physical & spiritual realm that brings harmony to the body, mind, and earth.
Val
Vallerie is a 20 year old Chaos Magician local to the Tampa Bay area who specializes in Candle Magick, Sigil Magick and reading Tarot. Having practiced magick for 5 years, they excel in bringing any manifestations to life, whether it be related to wealth, love, protection, success, enhancing creative flow, and more! If you are seeking answers for what the future holds, Vallerie offers 10 min tarot reading sessions that show a personal timeline of your past, present, and future. Having vast knowledge of crystals, they can also help you find the right crystals that you need to align with your intentions as well.
Ronnelle Fortin - Intuitive, Channeler, Oracle & Energy Reader
Ronnelle was born and raised in Southern California before relocating to Florida with her young family over a decade ago. It was during this transition that her spiritual journey began to deepen in meaningful ways. As she explored how best to nurture and support her children—each with their own unique gifts—she came to discover her own.
Today, she is an Intuitive Channeler and Reiki-certified healer. Through these practices, she offers personalized readings, using oracle cards to channel messages from the Divine. Those who have experienced her work often describe it as far more than a typical card reading—it’s a powerful activation, opening a deeper connection to their own spiritual path.
Nicole Smart -
Certified Sound Healer and Health & Wellness Coach
Nicole is a Certified Sound Healer, Reiki Practitioner, and National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach. She holds a BA in English with an Education minor and began her career as a classroom teacher. After burning out, becoming immersed in the healing arts shifted her perspective and trajectory. She has always been fascinated by the interconnectedness of mental, physical, and spiritual health. This led her to study evidence-based practices for cultivating healthy habits and learning to shift from a life of “going through the motions” to a life of intention. She discovered that meditating to the pure tones of the crystal singing bowls was a natural way to release built-up tension and treat her anxiety. Now, she loves facilitating Restorative Sound Baths as safe, comfortable spaces for others to share in the experience of the transformative power of sound. Nothing brings her more joy than helping others improve their health & wellness. She is committed to creating opportunities for others to experience the peace, joy, and groundedness that can come from these healing modalities.
Cheryl –
Founder of Cheryl’s Healing Cottage
Oracle, Healer, Survivor & Author
Cheryl is the heart and soul behind Cheryl’s Healing Cottage, a sacred space devoted to nurturing the mind, body, spirit, and soul. As an intuitive oracle and gifted healer, Cheryl channels divine guidance to support others on their path to wholeness. A survivor of sex trafficking, she now walks in her power, transmuting pain into purpose. Her upcoming audiobook, The Gilded Cage: A True Story of Survival, shares her story of resilience and transformation, offering hope, truth, and healing to those ready to rise. Cheryl’s work is rooted in love, presence, and the deep belief that every soul deserves to feel safe, seen, and supported.
Farah Torok – Divine Channeler, Healing & Guidance through Tarot & Oracle
Reading Tarot since the age of 15, I’ve always felt a deep calling to be a healer. From a young age, I’ve been aware of my intuitive gifts and have spent years studying spiritual practices. A major influence on my journey has been my grandmother, a Reiki Master in Mexico, whose wisdom continues to inspire my healing approach today.
I serve as a bridge between logic and spirituality, helping bring balance between the divine and the physical. Through channeled messages that come directly from Source, I offer insights that nourish the soul and support your alignment with your highest path. My readings focus on what you truly need to hear in the moment. Clients often describe a sense of relief and divine reassurance after our sessions, not because the words are mine, but because they come from a higher wisdom beyond comprehension.
Syra Orion - Tantra Healer
I guide souls on a sacred journey of reclamation, energy alchemy, and radical self-remembrance. Rooted in the path of pink tantra, my work blends deep somatic healing, intuitive spiritual technology/coaching, and subconscious reprogramming to awaken your life-force energy and create mind, body, and heart coherence. In these sessions, I help you transmute pain into power, shame into sovereignty, and silence into embodied truth. This is more than healing it’s a return to wholeness. Clients walk away feeling reconnected to their bodies, voices, and desires. They don’t just heal they rise. Sensual, sovereign, and unapologetically aligned.
Christie Rados -
Certified B.E.S.T. Practitioner,
Certified Spiritual B.E.S.T. Practitioner, Angelic Reiki Master
I was born and raised in Oregon and relocated to Florida in 1998. In 2010, I started receiving messages from Angels and a few years later began receiving messages from people that had passed on. I became a certified Angelic Reiki Master in 2015 and was certified as a Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique (B.E.S.T.) and Spiritual B.E.S.T. Practitioner in 2020. I have been doing energy work full time since 2022 and recently
expanded to working on and communicating with animals.