Rooting DC 2008 – Speaker Bios
We were joined by dozens of local organizations providing information about community gardening resources in Washington DC and many speakers who shared their knowledge with attendees, including:
City Blossoms is an organization dedicated to working with schools, neighborhood groups, community centers and other organizations to create spaces for children to use their creativity and combined strength and skills to learn how to grow and maintain fantastic yet functioning gardens. Rebecca and Lola have been gardening, art-making, and discovering with children in D.C. since 2000, and are expanding their efforts to Baltimore this year. Check them out at www.cityblossoms.org.
Susan Ellsworth is a co-director and founder of the 7th Street Garden in DC’s Shaw neighborhood. Before turning her attention to direct food production, Susan worked on several farms and at DC farmer’s markets. She has also worked on food policy for the advocacy organization Food & Water Watch.
Glenn Eugster is Assistant Regional Director for Partnerships at the National Park Service (NPS), National Capital Region in Washington, D.C. He has worked for nearly 40 years locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, with NPS, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and others, helping communities and park managers regenerate economies and ecosystems.
Liz Falk is co-founder and Director of the 7th Street Garden and Manager of Washington Parks & People‘s Community Harvest program. Liz is a passionate gardener, educator and permaculturist. She has a background in community development, environmental science, and sustainable agriculture, which a focus on urban food production.
Fannie Hamilton is a garden consultant who has been gardening for the last 27 years and lately downsized her garden to mostly containers. She loves growing herbs and composting and showing and telling anyone who will listen about how they too can grow many things without a lot of space, i.e.-sprouting herbs and vegetables.
Kimberly Rush Lynch is a Holistic Health Counselor and Food Educator in Greenbelt, MD. Upon graduating from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, she opened her practice, Cultivating Health, where she works with clients in a six month program to help them improve their eating habits and make sustainable lifestyle changes. Prior to her career as a health counselor, Kim was the Program Director for the Washington Youth Garden at the U.S. National Arboretum where she shared the benefits of gardening and cooking with local youth and their families.
Grace Manubay chairs the Schoolyard Greening committee for the DC Environmental Education Consortium. She has organized gardening workshops for teachers, tours of school garden projects, and launched DC School Garden Week, a celebration of school gardening and outdoor learning.
Parisa Norouzi is the co-founder and Co-Director of Empower DC, a community organizing project building political power for low and moderate income DC residents. She is the lead organizer of the People’s Property Campaign.
Jenny Reed is a partner in Natural Resources Design, Inc., an environmentally focused landscape design firm., with an emphasis on native plants and stormwater management.
Judy Tiger is the former executive director of Garden Resources of Washington, a local community & youth gardening organization operating in DC from 1982-2006.
