HELLO!  I manage ECO STUDIO as my personal community service initiative, and I hope you enjoy the resources found on this website.  My community service commitment stems from my Anthropology educational focus on grassroots community development with minor concentrations on Food & Culture and Cultural Economics.  While finishing my Master's thesis on work I conducted in Brazil on creating culturally appropriate curricula, housing and job training for street children, a one-day temporary assignment at the Points of Light Foundation led to a five-year position documenting best practices across the country in community service while also developing member technical assistance support and networking tools for over 500 Volunteer Centers.  In this role, I served as the primary liaison to the National Council of Volunteer Centers and developed regional meetings and tracks at the annual National Community Service Conference for Volunteer Centers and their community partners.  In my last year, I targeted five cities for bringing hundreds of people together to dialogue about best practices in service originating in, by and for low-income communities.  My passion for community service led me to assume a leadership position close to home as the Director of Mount Pleasant Main Street, overseeing commercial corridor development through fundraising, marketing, streetscape and park renovation projects, community engagement, partnership development and special events ranging from dog shows and street festivals for 10,000 participants to benefit dinners and annual Servathons involving over 400 volunteers.  I also developed technical assistance and storefront renovation opportunities for over 75 small businesses and established the city’s first Police & Fire Call Box Art Trail as well as our Heritage Trail. 

At the same time, I began developing my own sustainable and community-focused business, inspired by both Ben & Jerry's and Share Our Strength, with the mission of “connecting communities to good food while addressing issues related to food”.  In 1997 I launched ‘The People Garden’ with a membership service of weekly delivery of locally grown organic produce.  I grew the business to include a retail health market with full juice bar and kitchen as well as a catering and green event service.  After closing The People Garden retail market, I returned to non-profits by combining my skills in community service, business, program and fundraising management in the role of Operations.  In these roles, I continued to grow in volunteer management, partnership contracts, corporate donor relations and corporate volunteer programs among other areas and learned a lot about emergency planning.  Being the director of a website dedicated to sustainability education, I incorporated green initiatives and education into these non-profits and plan to strengthen my capacity for service management and social enterprise development by enrolling part-time in a long-distance M.B.A in Sustainability program.

I am currently seeking continued long-term growth in an Executive Director role for a dynamic organization committed to the development of community service, food access or sustainability.  If you are aware of a great available position, please extend my resume to the appropriate hiring manager.

Is your Eco-Friendly business, organization or service initiative listed in our Directory?

To strengthen the local green economy and sustainability throughout the region, we are developing the printed "Resource Directory - for Sustainable Living within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed" to widely distribute in 2011.