Director

Kristen Leonard is dedicated to empowering and inspiring youth through garden & kitchen based education. In 2012, Kristen co-founded Origins Cafe and initiated the Otsego Youth Food Movement, a local chapter of the international Slow Food Youth Network, working within local middle-high schools to explore the impacts of our food choices. Currently Kristen serves as the educational director of Growing Leaders.

Director

Evan Jagels is a musician, educator, composer, and producer. He has a MA in Jazz Performance from CUNY Queens and has performed across the United States and internationally, produced concerts with Grammy-winning artists, and is Lecturer of Music at Hartwick College. Jagels is passionate about enriching our rural community by working to bring artists of the highest caliber from multiple musical and cultural traditions to our greenhouse space.

Dana Sanders has been a leader in the local Slow Food movement for 12 years, as co-founder and executive chef of Origins Cafe. She is passionate about educating community about food as medicine and the cultural origins of traditional foods.

Tashi Dolma is the founder of Tibetan Home of Hope, a nonsectarian home and school for Tibetan children who have been separated from their parents. It is a home where young people receive loving care, education, food, shelter, medical attention and the practical foundation needed to develop into independent adults with a full appreciation of their Tibetan heritage. Tashi is a devoted to the sustainability of Tibetan culture, and supportive of all efforts to protect and celebrate endangered cultural traditions of the world.

In her decade of work in development, Julia has raised millions by providing nonprofit organizations with incisive analysis and a poetic voice through institutional fundraising, strategy consulting, copywriting, and more.

Julia's work spans a wide range of issue areas, from youth development to language access, climate justice, social justice, workforce development, and the arts. She envisions a thriving planet with ecosystems as diverse as its cultures and economies, made possible by persistently shifting systems of power.