Pat Harrison has been a beekeeper for 5 years. After graduating from Ramapo College with a degree in environmental science He began to focus on building a sustainable beekeeping operation.

HarBee Beekeeping

www.harbee.net

Facebook: @HarBeeBeekeeping

Instagram: @harbee.beekeeping

Raquel Master has been working within Meadows Bee Farm since 2010. She has traveled to self-educate by working on farms throughout the Midwest of the United States, across Canada, and in Italy. Now, she works full-time at Meadows Bee Farm coordinating the Young Farmers Badge program, building a fun and creative environment to learn about farming, food, and forestry with young farmers in the local and world community.

Meadows Bee Farm

http://meadowsbee.com/

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Leigh Merinoff, a small farmer living in rural southern Vermont, is dedicated to reinvigorating ecological farming, the farm arts, and encouraging healthy nutrition-based eating. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Hunter College in NYC with undergraduate and master’s degrees in the fine arts, Leigh had a 25-year long career as a sculptor. Her interest in smallholder farming developed with field study trips in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America with Heifer International. Learning from indigenous farmers along with studying biodynamic agriculture encouraged her to shift fields. Today, Leigh owns and manages Meadows Bee Farm and The Young Farmers Badge Program in Windham, Vermont, and The Field House Eco-Farm and Learning Center where she engages children and adults in learning the basic skills of biodynamic farming, gardening, food preservation, and traditional farm craft. In addition, she has created Leigh’s Bees to provide high quality, wildcrafted, biodynamic health, and beauty products.

Meadows Bee Farm

http://meadowsbee.com/

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Sunday, February 21st, 11:30 am: Soil Health for the Home Gardener (Virginia Lamb)

Groundwork Education and Consulting is an Environmental Educator with over 25 years’ experience in recycling, composting, soil health, and organic gardening. She has a BA in Environmental Studies from Stockton University and in 2019 got her MS in Soil Science from UMass Amherst. Virginia worked as a recycling coordinator for many years for Galloway Township and Monmouth County NJ and has been a freelance educator/consultant since 2000. Clients include Rutgers University, Footprint Power, Honey Brook Organic Farm, DeFeo Associates, and many municipal environmental groups and garden clubs throughout the region. Virginia is a board member of the NJ Composting Council's Organics Recycling Foundation. She lives and gardens with her family in Maplewood NJ.

Groundwork Education and Consulting

www.groundworkec.com

We are a residential and commercial food scraps pickup service and backyard compost consulting company. Java spent nearly two decades as a teacher in public, private and charter schools the last of which was Philip's Academy Charter School where he was first exposed to composting. It was there that his love affair with composting began as he saw first-hand the value of food scraps and the wonderful resource they can be when cared for properly. Michelle's background is in clinical social work with a focus on children and families. After having three sons, she left the paid workforce to care for them at home. Initially a reluctant composter, she grew to love and appreciate composting for the same reasons as Java. Together, they have built their business over the past four years, with the main mission to spread the compost love to all those who want to know about it.

Java’s Compost

www.javascompost.com

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Saturday, February 20th, 1:00 pm: WE ARE WHAT WE CONSUME: Food, Media, and the Environment We Live In (Poet on Watch)

Poet On Watch is the producer and director for Love In The Midst Of Climate Change. Love In The Midst Of Climate Change is a short film that highlights ordinary people doing extraordinary things to survive and lead decent lives in the teeth of adverse circumstances in Newark, New Jersey, and Cape Town, South Africa. Poet On Watch authentically represents regionally specific sub-cultures and works to bridge the conversations around race, class, and gender within multi-racial communities through her films, poetry, and earthwork. She works as an independent filmmaker, permaculturalist, and art director globally.

Newark Women in Film

www.newarkwomeninfilm.com

Facebook: @poetonwatch @newarkwomeninfilm

Saturday, February 20th, 11:30 am: Creative Placemaking: Interventions for Underserved Communities (Bilal Walker)

Bilal Walker is a Newark native, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Educator, and Aspiring Anthropologist, holding credits in Early Childhood Education and Teaching, as well as currently pursuing an MA in Child Policy and Advocacy in Social Work. He has over 4 years of experience in, but not limited to, culturally responsive Research, Assessment, Development, implementation, Data Analysis, and Key Relationship Management.  He implements creative placemaking frameworks as interventions to social disparities. 

Malcolm McClain is the internship coordinator for the Newark Youth Leadership Project at Greater Newark Conservancy. In his role, Malcolm is involved in coordinating many of the Conservancy's food programming efforts. Malcolm earned his MA in Sociology from Lehigh University and has adapted his studies to promote an understanding of food systems among Newark youth.

Megan has been the Nutrition Educator at the Conservancy since 2014 and loves sharing food knowledge with people of all ages because she believes that you truly are what you eat!  Besides a passion for nutrition and cooking, Megan loves to play the cello in her spare time.

Keven Porter is a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and urban farmer. Keven was born and still lives in Newark where he and his wife started Rabbit Hole Farm Newark in 2013 after being inspired by a talk given by the Conservancy. He serves as director of Rabbit Hole Farm in Newark located at 36-38 Rose Terrace. For the past three years, Keven has been learning the healing powers of plants. Last year he was invited to join a few local farmers' markets.

Rabbit Hole Farm

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Tobias Fox is the Founder and Managing Director of the community-driven, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Newark Science and Sustainability, Inc. Aside from being a writer and having ten years of independent publishing experience, Fox is a Professional Organizer, Agriculturalist, Photographer, and Coordinator of an annual Sustainable Living Empowerment Conference. He conducts various community events, presentations, and workshops on sustainable living practices and has assisted numerous urban farmers and gardeners with the cultivation of their agricultural space.

Newark Science and Sustainability, Inc.

www.sasglocal.com

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram: @newarksas

Shannon Murphy is Greater Newark Conservancy's FoodCorps member. FoodCorps is a  branch of AmeriCorps that places service members in sites that want to or are already working to fulfill the FoodCorps mission: together with communities, to connect kids with healthy food so that they know what it is, where it comes from, and are able to eat it every day. She leads gardening, cooking, and tasting lessons with kids in public elementary schools throughout Newark.

Shannon was drawn to this work for a few reasons. Her relationship with food changed once she worked on a farm and was able to experience everything that went into growing, harvesting, and preparing your own produce. She fell in love with growing food and sharing it with the community and wanted to help others do the same. Shannon tried certain plant foods for the first time and noticed the impact they had on her body; that these foods didn't leave her feeling sluggish or tired but light and full of energy. She also noticed the disparities in food access across different communities, specifically in areas with structural inequalities based on place, race, and class.

All of these reasons inspired her to search for opportunities where she could start passing on my knowledge about growing food in order to help create food sovereignty. She had never been in a teaching position before but recognized that part of her struggle in a traditional school atmosphere was that she is more of a hands-on learner and that there are kids out there that are the same way. The set-up of the FoodCorps lessons being hands-on and in nature especially motivated her to become a service member.

Justin has been gardening and working with plants since as early as he can remember, around the age of three. His passion is now in growing food organically. As of January 2017, he began working at Isles, Inc. in Trenton as their Urban Agriculture Coordinator. For the past 4 and a half years he has been working for Greater Newark Conservancy first as their Youth Farm Stand Coordinator, then Director of Community Greening, and finally Director of Urban Agriculture. Prior to that, he worked for 5 years with young children on an eighth of an acre garden through HealthBarn USA’s healthy lifestyle education program. Justin received an Associate of Arts from Bergen Community College. He also received his Bachelors of Science in Nutritional Science with a concentration in Dietetics, along with a certificate in Food Systems Education and Administration from Rutgers University. Justin has also earned an internationally-recognized Permaculture Design Certificate.

Charmaine La Fortune is the Founder and Project Manager of the Giving One-Tenth Community Garden Organization based in the South Ward of Newark, NJ.  She has been a resident of the City of Newark for the past 15 years and is very passionate about her community.  Giving One-Tenth was established four years ago from her desire to transform an abandoned corner lot into a City garden paradise. Her love for gardening and the desire to give back to our community lead her to create the Organization.  She realized that there was a need for fresh, local, in-season organically grown crops within the City of Newark. 

Charmaine La Fortune and the organization Giving One-Tenth has donated over 500lbs of vegetables to the community over the last three years.  The organization believes that having access to healthy nutrient-dense foods contributes to the overall wellbeing of people in our community. Our Mission is to improve the health of individuals and communities by educating and building collaborative partnerships that would transcend to a healthy sustainable change for a lifetime.

Facebook @Giving One-Tenth Community Garden

Instagram @Givingonetenth_garden

Emilio is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Urban Agriculture Cooperative, and a Program Director of Planting Seeds of Hope. These nonprofit organizations are important parts of Newark NJ's local food system and green community development.

For UAC, Emilio manages staff, development, and project budgets complete grants, and oversees the daily work of the organization, including managing gardens, farmer's markets, and composting projects.  Emilio has a Bachelor’s from Rutgers College Honors Program and his Masters in City and Regional Planning from Rutgers Bloustein School of Planning and Policy Development, with a focus on community development organizations.  Emilio has worked 12 years in non-profits and urban agricultural projects, with a passion for social justice, community development, healthy sustainable living practices, and integrated neighborhoods.  Outside of UAC he teaches youth gardening programs through the YMCA and coaches youth, Ultimate Frisbee, for his hometown of Maplewood/South Orange New Jersey.

Jamie Bruno is the Co-founder of Urban Agriculture Cooperative and supports the nonprofit’s organizational development. As Program Director Jamie leads operations, safety, and reporting for local food system development. In part, this encompasses UAC's online farmer's market, the farm & food training reimbursement program, and advocacy for small volume food waste management (a.k.a. community composting).

Jamie has worked in urban agriculture in Newark since 2012 with nonprofits Planting Seeds of Hope, Urban Agriculture Cooperative, and Greater Newark Conservancy as their first Foodcorps Service Member. In 2017, Jamie helped to develop creative messaging for green infrastructure and environmental education projects as a Resident Artist with Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership and coLAB Arts in New Brunswick, NJ under a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Outside of UAC Jamie is an Artist, Data Analyst, and Outreach Consultant working on city-wide buy local initiatives with nonprofit Forward Ever Sustainable Business Alliance.

Cindy Duran serves as UAC’s online farmers market manager for The Cooperative Market. She joins UAC with a background in program management and over 8 years of customer service experience. Most recently she served as a coordinator for Catapult Learning where she managed multiple preschool aftercare programs and supervised teaching staff. She has also spent time leading volunteer opportunities for various non-profits as a project coordinator for Jersey Cares. Cindy holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Rutgers University - Newark and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in sustainability science from Montclair State University. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking vegan food and cuddling with her 3 cats.

"If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.  So if you love a flower, let it be.  Love is not about possession.  Love is about appreciation.”

Vu-An Foster didn’t find her appreciation for unpicked flowers until she met someone special and was gifted a plant after her first second-trimester loss.  This plant was so special to her that she did everything in her power to keep it alive which inspired her to start her own small garden in her apartment.  To her surprise, she was quite good at it.  The following year when she suffered her second second-trimester loss, she fully emerged herself into gardening by joining Plot-It-Fresh in 2018.  She purchased a couple of beds and made an area in honor of her daughters in the garden.

Since then the garden has been a very special place for her as she finds gardening therapeutic.  Not only does she document her season but she shares her harvest with the neighborhood gardeners, family, and friends through the season.  After two years with Plot-it-Fresh, Vu-An Foster has decided to branch out and start her own community garden where she will continue to honor babies taken too soon, teach the community how to garden and continue to grow her own fruits and vegetables.   In preparation for her first season as a garden owner, she is currently taking Rutgers Master Gardening Classes.  Outside of gardening, she loves nature, horseback riding, and is passionate about supporting women and families who experienced Pregnancy and Infant Loss.