Now the President of the Board for NOFA/Mass, as well as the Co-President for the NOFA Interstate Council, Laura has served on the NOFA/Mass Board of Directors since 2011. In 2014, Laura joined the staff assisting farmers with their organic certification questions, and then joined the Soil Technical Assistance team in 2017 doing soil test analysis. Laura has two teenage daughters, runs Long Life Farm in Hopkinton, MA, along with her husband Donald Sutherland, and grows certified organic vegetables.  Learning from NOFA workshops has enabled her to grow nutrient dense food in a no-till regenerative system.

For the past 17 years, Jen has been actively involved as a vegetable grower and educator in the Berkshires. She and her husband are proud to own and operate Woven Roots Farm, a CSA and community wholesale operation that focuses on bio-intensive growing using no-till and regenerative farming practices. Jen has been a member of NOFA since she was in college and has always appreciated NOFA’s leading role in education and policy.  She is proud to be a representative of no-till agriculture for NOFA/Mass and to be a part of its influence in the regenerative agriculture movement.

Richard began organic gardening over 40 years ago, and became a serious, part-time farmer in 2004. He grows certified organic vegetables, small fruits, and Christmas trees at Hopestill Farm in Sherborn, MA. Richard joined NOFA not too long after beginning his farm, and joined the Board of Directors in 2017 to further the mission of connecting farmers, gardeners, activists, and others who care about healthy soil, robust food systems, and healing the planet. As chair the Finance Committee, he urges anyone to ask themselves how they can support NOFA, and tell us how NOFA can support what you do.

Bettye is the former Deputy Director of the Springfield Department of Health and Human Services (SDHHS) and a career nurse clinician. After pursuing her undergraduate degree at Dillard University, a Historical Black College, she obtained a graduate degree from Boston University. Her ensuing work has centered on social justice, health equity and disparities in health care and health outcomes. She has practiced in acute care settings, taught at the college level, and worked to promote community health. She has been involved in many public health projects and continues to advocate for healthy communities alongside NOFA/Mass.

Doug is an experiential educator, farmer, gardener, and land manager. His professional experience includes Education Director for Land’s Sake in Weston, MA, Education Events Coordinator for NOFA/Mass, and developing a veterinary clinic and diversified agroforestry farm with his spouse in Nicaragua. As livestock manager for Lillooet Farm in Boxford, MA he practices management intensive grazing with a flock of sheep while developing and enhancing a silvopasture landscape. He promotes regenerative agriculture and a restorative food system by helping more people gain access to the resources needed to grow healthy food and foster local knowledge networks.

John has spent time in Colorado and Oregon, only to return to the place and people he loves; Massachusetts.  Growing up in North Central Massachusetts, he has lived in Wampanoag land, now called Mattapoisett, since 1997.  Recently, he has been falling into the worm hole of compost and soil microbiology and how it relates to plant health, which then relates to whole systems health.  John’s interest in NOFA/Mass is to expand on these concepts to bring greater nutrition to our local food system, to build healthier communities, and heightened value for those that do the work of raising food and healthy landscapes.

Priscila is a social entrepreneur, activist, and inventor whose social enterprise, SproutChange, started as a hashtag to influence a grassroots advocacy movement in consumer education around alternative medicine, organic agriculture, sustainability, and social/food justice. Today SproutChange has gone from a grassroots movement to a budding start-up underwritten by UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital to work in the North Central Massachusetts region improving this population’s health outcomes. Priscila is also a member of the Worcester Food Policy Council and Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition. She is pursuing a dual MS + MBA degree from Bentley University.

Viondy, a retired professional athlete, has been cultivating cannabis organically since 2018 and practicing Korean Natural Farming (KNF) since 2015. Viondy is currently working towards becoming a “Soilsmith” which will enable him to teach advanced Natural Farming courses. He has also been farming at Land’s Sake Farm in Weston, MA, is the founder of The Green Torch LLC, a MA-based cannabis microbusiness, and is the founder of The Watch City Program, a non-profit youth football club in Waltham, MA. He also manages the Transitional Wellness Center, a homeless shelter in Cambridge, MA. “Education is the pathway to enlightenment!”

Karen is a Professor in Sustainable Food Systems at University of New Hampshire, where she connects the community-engaged, transdisciplinary work of Food Solutions New England (FSNE), and in particular, its racial equity work, to students, faculty, and staff at UNH. Karen is Principal of KAS Consulting and provides mission-based consulting with a focus on resource matching, board development, and strategic planning for health and equity-focused initiatives. She has extensive experience in working with youth, young adults, and community members in a variety of educational and training programs.

Priscilla has been gardening since childhood and has a keen interest in the flowers of yesteryear. In 2001 she founded Pumpkin Brook Organic Gardening while also volunteering as a founding member of the NOFA Organic Land Care committee and co-authored Standards for Organic Land Care: Practice for Design and Maintenance of Ecological Landscapes. She’s been a member of NOFA/Mass since 1989.  Now as a board member, she works with the Board Development and Strategic Planning committees.