Hannah Breckbill is a farmer and activist rooted in Decorah, Iowa. She founded Humble Hands Harvest in 2013, and has since found permanent land and a co-farmer for this organic vegetable, grass-fed lamb, pastured pork, and perennial crop farm that seeks to impact local culture through land-based work and celebration. Hannah’s roots as a Mennonite, and current participation at a Quaker meeting, have influenced her trajectory as an activist, from training with Christian Peacemaker Teams in 2009 to serving as board chair of the Northeast Iowa Peace and Justice Center. Hannah is the host of the annual Queer Farmer Convergence, a social gathering for queer-identified agriculturalists with a co-learning focus around dismantling the heteropatriarchy, decolonizing, and undoing racism on farms and in rural communities. She has also been generating local action around climate change and ecological resilience in the past year and is excited to build her organizing and leadership skills to make empowered change!
Dr. Carrie Kholi-Murchison (more fondly known as khoLi.) is an educator; a poet and scholar; an entrepreneur, and strategist. Having earned a B.A. in English Arts and Creative Writing from Hampton University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers, she’s absorbed a unique set of skills, all dependent upon proactive, responsive, critical thought. In khoLi.’s career, she’s combined creativity, digital content, literature, theory and a dash of pop culture to create campaigns, content, curriculum, experiential marketing, and scalable operation systems supporting the development of deepened community connection and an equitable future. She currently serves as Co-Founder and Executive Director of HOLI. Brands, where she and a set of shrewd accomplices work to make the future now.
Jasmine Hamilton‘s interest in health arose from witnessing the ways in which chronic illness and the suffering associated with it prevent people and communities from flourishing. She has sought solutions to these challenges through exploration of the Christian faith, training as a Scientist, and community service. Her personal quest to improve health outcomes for those suffering led her away from her native Caribbean to Canada and beyond, where she completed a BSc. (Honors) in Biochemistry from Trent University, a certificate in Global Health Governance from the Sandford School of Public Policy at Duke University, and a Ph.D. in the area of transfusion medicine at the Centre for Blood Research in Vancouver. She has worked at the community level to increase awareness of debilitating diseases like Huntington’s, interned at the WHO in Geneva, served her faith communities across Canada as a writer and small group leader, and engaged Canadian youth on Global citizenship, science communication, and social issues in science. She was awarded the Jay Telfer Award for her Leadership of the Canadian Hunger Foundation’s Global Education Program in British Columbia, the Karanja Njoroge Community Service Award for her commitment to development education in the Peterborough community, a Byron Fellow, and a mentor to graduate and undergraduate trainees. Jasmine has spent the past year on sabbatical during which she’s enjoyed venturing into the world of Creative Writing, serving in the small group ministry at her local church, and volunteering at the Scott Mission in Toronto.
Sarah Howell-Miller is a pastor-musician-bioethicist. She currently works for the Missional Wisdom Foundation as the Prioress of The Foundry House, an intentional community on the campus of Crossnore School & Children’s Home in Winston-Salem, NC. There, she helps cultivate community among young adults of diverse backgrounds, including former foster children, in a context committed to reconciliation, food justice, and trauma-informed approaches. Located just a mile from downtown Winston-Salem, the main feature of Crossnore’s campus is a 100-acre farm where The Foundry’s service is centered and where health disparities, food insecurity, and mental health are addressed holistically in concert with the earth. Sarah is an ordained United Methodist minister; she received her B.A. in Religion and Medieval & Renaissance Studies as well as her M.Div. from Duke and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Bioethics at Wake Forest University. She is writing her master’s thesis on substance use, harm reduction, disability, and liberation theology. Sarah is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, regularly performing with a local band as well as solo. She lives just south of downtown Winston-Salem, where she loves having family dinners and game nights with friends and neighbors. Sarah enjoys hiking, biking, cooking, reading, hanging out with friends, and spoiling her pit bulls.
Sarah Ogletree recently earned her Master of Divinity, with a concentration in religious leadership and ecology, from Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She has worked at the intersection of faith and environment for the past five years, partnering with organizations like the Creation Care Alliance of Western North Carolina, United Methodist Women, Creation Justice Network (UCC Southern Conference), and Presbyterians for Earth Care. In her current role as the Sacred Foodscapes Coordinator of North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light (NCIPL), Sarah is blessed with the opportunity to walk alongside faith communities as they consider the social, environmental, and climate impacts of their relationship to food. Through holy acts of composting, conservation, gardening, and advocacy, North Carolina faith communities can lower their carbon footprints, help create more just and sustainable food systems, and better care for all of God’s creation. Sarah calls the southern Appalachian mountains home. She resides in Happy Valley, North Carolina, with her husband, dog, and two cats.
Jennifer Orr is a United Methodist pastor currently serving a small rural church while coordinating a new ministry, Crossroads Connections, in the area she serves. Crossroads Connections is a coordinated effort amongst many small rural Methodist churches and ecumenical partners to offer the love of Christ to the community through relationships between those serving and those being served. Jennifer is a graduate of Pfeiffer University and Wesley Theological Seminary through its partnership with Pfeiffer. Aside from connecting the church with the larger community, Jennifer also has gifts in worship and music that she has used in various ways throughout her ministry. She lives in Concord, North Carolina, with her husband and their dog.
Stephanie Thomas is a researcher and a community organizer with Public Citizen, based out of Houston, TX, where she works with the Healthy Port Communities Coalition, a group which advocates for reductions in diesel emissions and improvements in air quality as well as community safety in and around the Port of Houston. Dr. Thomas is also a lead organizer for the Houston Climate Movement, a coalition of organizations and individuals advocating for climate action and resiliency planning for the city of Houston. Stephanie is an earth scientist by background whose research has focused on ancient climatic and environmental change over 250 million years ago. She is also an ordained Buddhist chaplain. During her Buddhist studies at Upaya Zen Center, she developed a thesis entitled “Climate Change, Mass Extinction, and Compassionate Action: A Vision of Environmental Chaplaincy for the Anthropocene.”
Alex Treyz grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley. She is the daughter of green-thumbed parents, who inspired her from childhood to love and care for the natural world. She currently serves as the food and faith associate in research at Duke University’s World Food Policy Center in Durham, North Carolina. In her work at the Center, Alex conducts research and convenes interfaith leaders, academics, practitioners, funders, and non-profit professionals with the goal of supporting food and faith work grounded in equity and justice. She currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Eastern NC FaithLands pilot project, which seeks to connect aspiring farmers with faith-owned lands and thereby promote sustainable and regenerative agriculture. Alex graduated from Duke with a dual master of divinity and master of public policy degree in 2017. Alex is bi-vocational: in addition to her work at Duke, she serves as Lay Minister for Congregational Care at Durham Presbyterian Church. She is a graduate of Davidson College, where she earned a BA in English in 2009. Alex is grateful to call Durham, NC home and enjoys playing music, writing, and sharing life with folks in her church and greater Durham community.
Pearl Quick is an Afro-Latina farmer currently a Dual Degree student at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is studying to receive her Divinity Degree on a Youth Ministry track. Pearl is also studying to get a certificate in Ecology and works as a farm hand at Princeton’s Farming program aptly named ‘Farminary.’ Pearl Quick is from North Carolina originally where she grew up farming, learning animal husbandry, and meat production. She currently lives in Princeton and does Urban Farming in the South Bronx, in New York City. Pearl wants to continue studying the connections between God and the land in regards to healing and health in the Black, Brown, and Queer community.
Returning Fellows
Nikki Cooley serves as the co-manager for the Tribal Climate Change Program at the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP). She is of the Diné (Navajo) Nation by way of Shonto and Blue Gap, AZ, and is of the Towering House Clan, born for the Reed People Clan, maternal grandfathers are of the Water that Flows Together Clan, and paternal grandfathers are of the Manygoats Clan. Nikki received her Bachelor’s and Master’s of Forestry (emphasis in ecological restoration and traditional ecological knowledge) from Northern Arizona University (NAU). For her undergraduate and Master’s studies she has worked extensively with the Cherokee Tribe of North Carolina, and now works at ITEP with tribes across the nation, including Alaska, on learning about and planning for the adaptation to current and future climate change effects. In addition, as a river guide and cultural interpreter working on the Colorado River-Grand Canyon and San Juan River, Nikki is the co-founder of the Native American River Guide Training Program and Fifth World Discoveries, was the first Native American President and Vice-President of the Grand Canyon River Guides Association (GCRG), and is a former associate director of the Native Voices Program. She also served a six year term as the first Native American to serve on the board of the Grand Canyon Association (GCA). She is very passionate about advocating for and education about the protection and preservation of the environment and its resources. Nikki fluently speaks her Navajo language and culture, and is committed to encouraging people to continue the path of a holistic respect and knowledge towards food and life.
Wilson Dickinson is a teacher, writer, and minister who is seeking to cultivate communities of simple, sustainable, just, and joyful living in his hometown of Georgetown and the region of Central Kentucky. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the director of The Green Good News, an organization that partners with churches and communities to connect sustainability and discipleship. This work takes place through local projects—like Green Christians dinner church and Twisted Trunk Community Garden—and educational ventures with other communities. He teaches theology at Lexington Theological Seminary. He is completing an academic monograph, The Wisdom of the Cross: Exercises in New Creation from Paul to Kierkegaard, and is working on a popular book on Jesus as an agrarian revolutionary who charts a path for sustainable and joyful life today.
Duncan Hilton has been Priest for Discipleship and Discernment at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Brattleboro, VT since 2017. Before arriving in Vermont and being ordained, Duncan worked for five years as Executive Director with the Leadership Development Initiative (LDI), where he trained Episcopal parishes in team-based leadership practices in order to help them launch local mission projects. He also worked as Training Director for Life Together, the Boston-based Episcopal Service Corps program, and as a Teaching Fellow with Professor Marshall Ganz at the Harvard Kennedy School in his class, “Organizing: People, Power, Change.” Duncan’s career shifted from congregational ministry in the United Church of Christ, where he served as a minister for youth and children, to leadership and organizing through his experience in 2010 as Field Coordinator for the Promise Arizona campaign, which registered over 15,000 new voters in the state.
Kevin Bates is a United Methodist minister currently serving two rural churches near Asheville. He is a graduate of Chapel Hill and Duke Divinity school. At Duke Divinity, Kevin participated in the Thriving Rural Communities Initiative – a program which seeks to lift up and celebrate the gifts of rural communities. In his work with the Creation Care Alliance of WNC, Kevin seeks to articulate and learn the connections between faith, ecology and rural communities. Kevin is an avid hiker and gardener. He lives with his wife, Mary and their two kittens, Eyja and Katla, in Candler.
Christopher Bolden Newsome grew up in a social justice focused household, the oldest son of small scale organic farmers and food sovereignty educators Demalda Bolden-Newsome and Rufus Newsome, Sr. The Bolden-Newsome family originates from the Mississippi Delta where Chris grew up raising and eating many traditional African American crops. In the mid 1980’s the family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Always fascinated by growing food, Chris got involved in food justice initially in Washington, DC, starting backyard gardens for neighbors while studying anthropology at Howard University from 2001-2004. Chris worked on his family’s farm in Tulsa where he grew food for market and designed food sovereignty and hands on agricultural workshops for teachers, after school programs and First Nations tribal entities. In 2008 Chris moved to Philadelphia where he managed and created programming for the Seeds for Learning Youth Farm at Martin Luther King High School. In 2011 working with farm Co-Director Ty Holmberg and at the time, the University of Pennsylvania, Chris helped to establish the Community Farm and Food Resource center at historic Bartram’s Garden, the country’s first botanical garden located in Philadelphia, PA. The farm came under community management in June 2016. For this project, Chris took on management of a 2 acre crop field, community garden, an orchard and an organic production greenhouse.
Grounded in Washington D.C., Avery Davis Lamb is living out his call as ecological scholar-activist in an urban setting, doing grassroots climate organizing with religious groups across the DC-Maryland-Virginia region. He works with congregations of all faith, building a religious response to climate change through education, greening, and advocacy. Before joining the Interfaith Power & Light movement, Avery worked at Sojourners and graduated from Pepperdine University, where he engaged in Religion and Ecology research and earned a degree in Biology and Sustainability. On his weekends, Avery volunteers at the Three Part Harmony urban farm in DC and cultivates a very small piece of land in front of his row-house apartment.
Allyson Green spends her time navigating and creating connections between people and ideas, living into concepts that have resonated deeply since her first ecology class and ecological explorations of the Psalms. Having studied science education, environmental justice, and environmental health, she enjoys tying all kinds of equity issues together and looking at root causes and co-creative action to make change on individual, community, and societal levels. She tries to bring the stories, experiences, people, and creatures from past communities that have influenced this vocational journey – from the glacial hills of Wisconsin, mountains of Wise County, VA, and fields of the University of Michigan Campus Farm – into her current work as the Chief Sustainability Officer at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN.
Sarah Horton-Campbell is the founding pastor of Common Life Church & Farm, a new United Church of Christ church plant forming now in Saxapahaw, NC. Common Life is a combination of embodied spirituality through gardening and dinner church worship, a sustainable farming social enterprise, and a young adult formation program. Sarah became passionate about environmental stewardship as a child exploring the beaches, estuaries, and Everglades of south Florida. This passion for earth care led her to learn about how healthy food systems can have a huge positive impact on the planet and our bodies. Prior to founding Common Life Church & Farm, Sarah earned her MDiv at Duke Divinity School and MSW at UNC-Chapel Hill and served as the executive director of Johnson Service Corps for 4 years. Sarah and her husband Josh live in a yurt on Dinner Bell Farm, a sustainable produce, egg, and pork farm owned and operated with her parents, John and Stephanie Campbell.
After seminary, Karen Mann worked for a number of years as a hospital chaplain before following her passion for food on to the farm. The first stop was as the Market Manager for a network of farms for refugees. Given that she didn’t meet any of the qualifications, she’s pretty sure she got the job by describing how much she loves turnips. She has now settled on her own farm in central Virginia, Heart & Bones Hollow, with her partner and two kids. Together they raise goats, pigs and a variety of produce for market. She is also working to start a new Dinner Church in her rural community and hoping to find ways to bring the farm and the faith community together.
Armel Martin grew up in the sprawled Twin Cities suburbs, where his calling to regenerate neighborhoods into abundant village communities originated. After graduating from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, he gleaned organizational leadership experience with a leading natural food retail cooperative, while furthering his education with permaculture design certifications. Armel is the leader and founder of New City Backyard Farms, a start-up project of New City Church that uses the power of resilient urban backyard food systems to build healthy livelihoods. He is a proud Minneapolis resident, where he passionately commits his roots and focus in his own neighborhood while inspiring change in others.
Jessica Miller is a disciple of the Doan Brook, Shagarin (Chagrin River) and Oulame Thepy (Vermilion River) watersheds of Northern Ohio. After spending two-and-a-half transformative years studying and working in New Zealand, she began seeking God and vocation through inquiry and interpretation of the natural world. Her calling has led her into work as a botanist and forest ecologist, working in conservation for the Holden Arboretum, as an environmental educator, and field research with the Cleveland Metroparks. Currently she works as the Land Stewardship and Program Manager for Bellwether Farm, the camp, retreat and education center of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. This new center is a working farm that seeks to promote wellness, social justice and fidelity to the earth through farming and modeling land stewardship. In her current role, she is responsible for development and planning of ongoing adult and youth programming, overseeing the care of the land, and enacting a land management plan for the 140-acres of forest, wetland and field next to the Vermilion River. Jessica lives in community with family and friends along with three chickens, a vegetable garden, and an accumulation of medicinal and native plants.
Kristan Pitts is a native of Greenville, SC and chose to serve in her community after graduating from Converse College, where she studied Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. Her life’s work embodies the audacity to impact her community through faith-based, community-centric work. She currently wears several hats, serving as the JustFaith Greenville Community Coordinator and as a campus minister with Mere Christianity Forum. In her current and previous roles, Kristan’s work includes environmental stewardship education, community engagement, and community grassroots leadership development. Kristan is also an incoming student at Wake Forest School of Divinity.
Candace Thompson, a native Texan, serves as a catalyst in the community by promoting transformational behavior changes supporting an improved quality of life through the practice of generous listening, walking in solidarity, and advocating. She is the Community Outreach Manager for Baylor Scott & White Health & Wellness Center (BSW HWC). She is responsible for the oversight, on-going development and implementation of the PEERS Health Ministry Program, cultivating and nurturing relationships with churches and community partners to increase the visibility and reach of BSW HWC in Southern and South Dallas communities and as a resource for connecting BSW HWC members to available community services to enhance quality of life. Previously, she worked at Jubilee Park & Community Center as the Director of Community Outreach cultivating relationships with members of the southeast Dallas community to revitalize the neighborhood through a comprehensive community development approach. Career highlights include: a published article in the Guardian UK, presentation of a Tedx Talk at Southwestern Adventist University, and coordination of KERA’s segment on Jubilee Park residents in their award winning series “One Crisis Away in a Neighborhood.” Candace Thompson has over 10 years of experience serving the nonprofit sector. She earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a dual Masters in Public Administration and Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington. She is deeply passionate about her family, population health, and her community. Believing that our past informs us about our future, she is committed to and engaged with the development and implementation of programs and services for multi-generations of community residents.
Derrick Weston is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) serving as the neighborhood organizer at Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, VA. He is working with the congregation to establish a sacred green space that will create an intersection of contemplation, ecological education, and spiritual formation. Derrick co-hosts two podcasts (God Complex Radio, The Gospel According to Marvel) and blogs regularly at derricklweston.com. He and his wife, also an ordained Presbyterian minister, live outside of Baltimore and have four children.
Lena Van Wyk is a graduate of Duke Divinity School’s Master of Divinity program, where she focused on agrarian and creation theologies. She founded the Duke Divinity Biblical Orchard, a permaculture garden in the heart of Duke’s campus, designed to inspire scriptural imagination through the use of edible and ornamental biblical plants. She is also the co-producer of Amuri: Sacred Flavors of Sicily, a documentary on the sacred food traditions of Sicily and how they cement local food culture. Lena is currently working as the Farm Director at New Garden Park, a 9-acre piece of land owned and operated by the Church of the Redeemer (Anglican Church of North America) in Greensboro, NC. The church hopes to use the land surrounding its sanctuary to create a permaculture farming ministry that will bless its surrounding community and be a place of radical hospitality. Lena is hoping to be ordained to the vocational diaconate in the Anglican Church of America (ACNA) and is starting her discernment process this autumn.