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Sue Davis
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR |
Sue Davis combines her knowledge of business and personnel management with her passion for access to healthy and sustainable food sources, community-centered programming, and environmental education. She has been well connected in the Sonoma farming community for nearly 15 years, which now serves to support SGN in tangible and practical ways. Sue leads the School Garden Network with high esteem for her Board and staff, the community, and the children and youth impacted by SGN. Her values-driven guidance of the organization promotes the humanity of people, a connection to the land, collaborative decision making, vision for opportunities, and promoting the highest good for the community that SGN serves. Sue holds a M.A. in Leadership and Humanities with an emphasis in Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Communities.
Contact: Sue.Davis@schoolgardens.org |
Anne Loarie
PROGRAMS DIRECTOR |
Anne's path in garden education has wound through studies at the University of Oregon, service in Peace Corps Panama as a Permaculture volunteer, time teaching in San Francisco Unified, and non-profit educational work. With her passion for gardening, cooking, the natural world, and social justice, empowering educators to take their students outside to learn has become a personal mission. Anne is also the Garden and Wellness Educator at Alexander Valley School where she integrates science curriculum with organic gardening practices and food literacy education. She envisions an education system that integrates whole child concepts through authentic, inquiry led, project-based learning so that our youth have the skills and opportunities to self-actualize in an increasingly hectic and yet isolating society.
Contact: Anne.Loarie@schoolgardens.org |
Shanon Whamond
COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER |
Shanon is an organic farmer with a passion for community, sustainability, art, and education looking to cultivate new opportunities. She is the co-owner of Hillview Farms, an organic, small-scale, regenerative vegetable farm located in Lincoln, CA that has provided her community with locally grown vegetables for the past 11 years. Shanon got bit by the farming bug after graduating from San Diego State University with a degree in Psychology. She wanted a career in which she could help others, and farming became her form of social justice. She pours her passions into the soil and in turn, provides the community that she loves with healthy food. As much as Shanon loves farming, they have chosen to scale back their operation to focus more of her energy on her newest crop, her growing family. She is excited to join the School Garden Network team to extend her farming passion to something equally as meaningful.
Contact: Shanon.Whamond@schoolgardens.org |
Michelle Krieg
SCHOOLYARD HABITAT PROGRAM MANAGER |
Michelle is an ecologist, land steward, farmer, and educator with over 14 years of experience in native habitat design, stewardship, and place-based education. She has managed a native plant nursery and three educational pollinator gardens, coordinated and led outdoor science and land-based learning programs for preschool to college-age students, hosted community workshops and trainings in ecological land stewardship and horticulture, and served as a native habitat consultant for schools, homeowners, and community volunteers. With a passion for integrating ecoliteracy into schools, she also has an educational consultancy—Foodways Education—through which she develops curriculum and designs garden-based school programming. Michelle believes that school garden habitats are the perfect setting for learners to engage their senses, cultivate relationships, and develop a sense of ecological belonging and stewardship. She is excited to join the School Garden Network team to continue creating and promoting garden-based learning ecosystems—bringing life to schools, and schools to life.
Contact: Michelle.Krieg@schoolgardens.org |
Lynn Wheeler
DATA AND SYSTEMS MANAGER |
A native of Pueblo, Colorado, Lynn landed in California by way of long hot summers in the Panhandle of Texas on her grandparent’s farm. Lessons learn there paved the way for her life as an environmentalist, a mother, a winemaker, and a business owner. Earning a B.S. in Botany from UC Davis, Lynn managed the CSA at the student organic farm, went on to cataloged the flora of Rocky Mountain National Park, and was the program director at Eco-Farm for several years before moving to Sonoma County to start a family and a winery. 20 harvests, 2 girls, Tofu the dog, a winery, and countless wines later Lynn is very excited to be a part of the School Garden Network team.
When Lynn is not at the winery or organizing files, her passion is in the garden with her girls. She values the lessons the garden can provide and strives to instill environmental stewardship alongside the joy of growing your own food. Contact: info@schoolgardens.org |
Courtney Delello
FARM-TO-SCHOOL PROGRAM MANAGER |
With a BS in Ecology and an MA in Sustainable Communities Courtney has spent her career involved in all aspects of local food systems, from research to education to getting dirty growing food. When she started volunteering on an organic farm during graduate school her dreams of studying plants and birds in far off locations changed dramatically. She found she loved the practical application of serving her community by settling into the land and growing food. Over the next two decades she would work on a myriad of garden projects, large and small, many of them involving sustainable food systems education to diverse age groups. She has been an associate instructor in the Agriculture/Natural Resources Department at Santa Rosa Junior College for 15 years and spent the last few years directing adolescents in the running of a 1 acre market garden. Courtney recently started a culinary garden consulting business, helping people to understand just how much food it is possible to produce in a small area. As the Farm to School Program Manager she is excited to take her passion for local food systems, knowledge of food growing practices and excitement about what is possible to grow in small gardens to the schools she will be serving.
Contact: courtney.delello@schoolgardens.org |