Heartfelt Heroes

Rachel grew up thinking everyone had a backyard garden, knew how to put up preserves, and understood instinctively that you ate what was in season, that was just how her family did things. Lessons from her grandmother and summers spent with extended family in Maryland reinforced this way of life. It wasn't until years later, working for her cousin at his stand at DC farmers markets, that she began to understand her experiences were not common. At these weekly markets she learned how wide the distance had grown between people and their food. But she also discovered how much people lit up when you helped them understand where their food came from, how it was grown, and who grew it. Lowering the barriers to knowledge, helping people make informed, confident choices, and meeting them where they are, are the same principles that underpinned her successful career in librarianship. The Executive Director role at the Friends of Great Kids Farm, she'll tell you, brings all her joys into one amazing opportunity - it is a dream job.

Rachel comes to Friends of Great Kids Farm with a robust career spent building bridges between people and knowledge. She contributed to community based efforts focused on expanding digital access, growing collaboration networks, and stewarding cultural heritage collections. These days, Rachel lives in Cascade, Maryland, at the revived Fort Ritchie campus, where she enjoys the rolling hills and rural villages of the region. She's an avid birder and a former local planning commission member — someone who has spent a fair amount of time thinking about land, community, and what it means to tend both well. She brings that same hands-on, place-based sensibility to her work, and to her belief that the best learning happens when it's rooted in something real.

For Rachel, Great Kids Farm sits at the intersection of everything she cares about most: food, community, equity, and the simple, powerful act of helping someone understand something they didn't before.