PEER LEARNING
Farm-based educators, we need each other! There’s a lot we can learn through a phone conversation, a site visit, or an email exchange. We foster multiple approaches to peer learning and support:
Request Mentorship (coming soon!)
View Member Directory
We are currently rebuilding a system to be able to make matches between those seeking and offering mentorship. As we work on this system, please take a minute to join the FBEN Member Directory, and view members by clicking the "Directory" button in your latest FBEN newsletter (from info@farmbasededucation.org). You can also view the list of mentors and consultants below, which was compiled in 2021.
The FBEN does not specifically endorse any particular mentor, consultant, or method of engagement.
The lists below are for your information and networking purposes.
Andrea Barnhart
Burtonsville, MD
Contact Andrea about in-kind mentorship or paid consulting
With over 20 years’ experience working with non-profits and 9 years’ experience working at Red Wiggler Community Farm managing people with intellectual and/or developmental differences, Andrea hopes to strengthen the Care Farming movement by providing training and consultations to other Care Farms, sharing in their challenges and successes specifically focusing on how to integrate people of all abilities into a working care farm juggling production demands alongside of inclusion.
Andrea can offer support in the areas of: Day to Day Operations of a Care Farm: Inclusion in farm tasks, Volunteer Management, Managing Staff (of all abilities), Systems tracking
(yields, distribution, and job skills development)
Wayne Castonguay
Ipswich, MA
Contact Wayne about in-kind mentorship
Wayne is the chair of the Three Sisters Garden Project, a community farming organization in Ipswich, MA. He is the former Agriculture Director for the Trustees of Reservations and a founding member of the FBEN.
Wayne can offer support in the areas of: Community-farm start up and business planning; the value of farm-based education.
CQ Strategies
Essex, VT
Contact CQ Strategies about paid consulting
CQ Strategies, LLC is a Vermont-based training collective committed to justice, equity, cultural proficiency and social justice. Since 2010, we have provided high quality, interactive learning
experiences to diverse groups and individuals yielding positive results.
CQ Strategies trainers have years of experience participating in and facilitating trainings related to class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, race, gender, age, physical appearance, and the inter-related dynamics of power and intersectionality. They have firsthand experiences as members of institutions undergoing journeys in cultural competence development among our respective workforces.
Giselle Cuevas
Asheville, NC
Contact Giselle about paid consulting
Giselle specializes in Yoga, Mindfulness and Nature-based education. Her goal is to motivate and inspire children to reach their highest potential through creativity in mindful movement.
Giselle can offer support in the areas of: Developing and implementing nature-based mindfulness practices with kids
Nathan Erwin
Arlington, VA
Contact Nathan about paid consulting
Nathan Erwin is a community-focused educator, environmentalist, analyst, and land-based poet. He has taught K-12 education in public schools for a decade; and has held outdoor education positions at the Accokeek Foundation’s Ecosystem Farm, Greystone Nature Preserve, and Chautauqua Institution. Nathan has also worked as a staff developer and facilitator, providing workshops on literacy, agroforestry, critical pedagogy, and environmental peacebuilding to indigenous and local people across five continents.
Nathan can offer support in the areas of: community-action projects and curriculum, place-based curriculum, agroecology and permaculture research, facilitation and workshop design, disability inclusion in outdoor settings, lesson planning, community mediation, social-emotional learning, mindfulness and mediation, wilderness survival, and nature writing.
Ben Holmes
The Farm School, Athol, MA
Contact Ben about limited in-kind mentoring or paid consulting specific to your organization's needs
Ben Holmes founded The Farm School in 1989 in order to offer the coming generations the gift of experience I had been given on my family farm.
In 2021 he launched Ben Holmes Consulting. Ben can offer support in the areas of: organization start-up/ maintenance, fundraising, board, and practical application of mission/values
Eric Jackson
Black Yield Institute, Baltimore, MD
Contact Eric about paid consulting
Eric Jackson is the founder and Servant-Director of Black Yield Institute, an emerging Pan-African institution based in Baltimore, Maryland.
Eric can offer support in trainings on: Racial Equity, Political Education, Community Organizing, Cultural Spiritual Education, Black Land & Food Sovereignty, Anti-Racism
Brian Kuser
Chesterfield, NJ
Contact Brian about in-kind mentorship and paid consulting
Brian has been involved with outdoor education since 1996 and Farm-Based Education since 2008.
Brian can offer support in the areas of: Education Programming & Marketing with specialties in summer camp, homeschool classes, field trips, after school programming, and vacation camp days. He can also offer support with running fundraisers and fundraising.
Omnymyst Consulting
Contact Omnymyst about paid consulting
Omnymyst is a multiracial, queer, cross-class, female-owned consulting firm that supports people and organizations to build equity and authentic connection. Through training, workshops, and coaching, Omnymyst’s team supports organizations in understanding equity and anti-oppression to build connected workplaces. We specialize in working with food and farming organizations to create a world where Black, Brown, queer, disabled, femme, and working class bodies can thrive.
Ang Roell
Montague, MA
Contact Ang about in-kind mentorship (for aspiring BIPOC beekeepers) or paid consulting
Ang Roell (they/them) is a beekeeper and writer who runs a small apicultural business built upon the practices of reciprocity modeled on the social norms of the bees themselves. Simultaneously, Ang works as a work-place culture consultant with organizations activated around making lasting change by shifting power structures. You can read more about Ang's beekeeping work here.
Ang can offer support in: starting and funding an apiary and training new beekeepers. Ang has a breadth of experience teaching to all ages- young children to adults, and specializes in supporting clients in facing their fear of honeybees. Ang leads group lessons about communication strategies that humans can learn from honeybees to be more effective teams. Ang's services and offered on a sliding scale, and are free to aspiring BIPOC beekeepers.
Ang is also a part of the multi-racial, cross class, gender diverse intergenerational team at Mainspring Change Consultants who work to address anti-oppression in workplace culture by conducting equity audits and building frameworks for change.
Rebecca Sorensen, MSW
Blawesome Farm, LLC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Contact Rebecca about in-kind mentorship and paid consulting
She is the co-founder of Blawesome. Rebecca has worked with individuals with disabilities for over 18 years and currently works as a Community Development Consultant; organizing and implementing unique community initiatives to serve adults living with I/DD. Her work focuses on using natural interactions and processes to promote a meaningful and intentional human experience.
Rebecca can offer support in the areas of peer mentorship for parents of individuals with Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities interested in the work of Social Care Farming and to professionals who have an interest in Social Care Farming initiatives.
Soul Fire Farm
Petersburg, NY
Contact Soul Fire Farm about paid consulting
Soul Fire can offer support in the areas of racial justice, food sovereignty, land rematriation, reparations, Afro-indigenous farming
Eric Tadlock
East Thetford, VT
Contact Eric about in-kind support or paid consulting
Eric Tadlock is the Executive Director of Cedar Circle Farm & Education Center. Before Cedar Circle, Eric was the director of education at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport, Maine, and co-founded Fernbrook Farms Environmental Education Center in Chesterfield, NJ.
Eric can offer support in the areas of: Program Development (his strongest area), Non-profit management. Eric has had the joy of working in the field of farm-based and environmental education for over twenty years. and is happy to hear from you and will help in any way he can.
Liza Talusan, Ph.D.
Liza Talusan Consulting
Contact Liza about paid consulting
Liza Talusan is a skilled facilitator who brings over two decades of experience to groups looking to engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Liza can offer support in the areas of: Strategic planning for diversity and inclusion; Staff training; Workshops on difficult conversations; Workshops on creating a more inclusive community.
Emily Virzi
Waitsfield, VT
Contact Emily about in-kind mentorship
Emily manages the pig program at Von Trapp Farmstead, a whey-fed, pastured production, and runs the inventory and sales (CSA and restaurant). She also raises lamb, chicken, goats, and duck at her own farm, Union Brook Farm in Northfield, VT.
Emily can offer support in the areas of: rotational management of pastured lambs, pigs, chicken, duck and goats; meat sales to restaurants and direct sales
Woody Woodroof
Germantown, MD
Contact Woody about in-kind mentorship or paid consulting
Woody is the Executive Director and Founder of Red Wiggler Community Farm. Established in 1996, Red Wiggler is a 12-acre certified organic vegetable farm that provides meaningful employment and healthy food for adults with developmental disabilities.
Woody can offer support in the areas of: Non-profit management, Fundraising, Board management, Care Farm start-up, Identification of Needs.
Soul Fire Farm's List of BIPOC and Accomplice/Multiracial Consultants
Soul Fire Farm in Petersburgh, NY has created a List of Trusted Consultants who offer training in ending racism, organizational healing, transformative justice, translation and interpretation, conflict resolution and more. View here.
Find and hire #NonprofitConsultantsOfColor!
From Take2Services
Take2Services writes, "we often hear that nonprofit leaders would love to hire but 'can’t find Black consultants,' or 'don’t know any consultants of color.' So, we put together a simple Google sheet directory of Nonprofit Consultants of Color. (This was inspired by www.writersofcolor.org/ – hat-tip & thanks!) The directory is for anyone who identifies as a consultant of color, and in particular, to amplify Black consultants.' If you or someone you know, needs to be added to this directory, please use this form. If you have any questions, please email contact@take2services.com. We hope this list helps to diversify the nonprofit consulting field!" - Take2Services