Abby Nathanson is the director and co-founder of Food/Farm/Faith. Previously, Abby worked for the Youth Arts Group (YAG), a program of the Rural and Migrant Ministry for high school students in the Hudson Valley who advocate for social justice through arts. She continues to be involved with YAG as the founder and coordinator of Coast-to-Coast Connections, an annual summer trip for YAG ambassadors to Seattle for activist solidarity work and independent research. Currently, Abby coordinates Women's Power Space, a new initiative for women's leadership and empowerment in the City of Poughkeepsie, where she is collaborating on an exciting new project called Yoga Justice, an online home for yoga work oriented towards justice. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Sexual Minorities Education Foundation in Northampton, Massachusetts, and for the Kishna Foundation working in Georgetown, Guyana. A lifelong vegetarian, Abby is interested in food justice because of its intersections with body politics, which she's hoping to study more about in graduate school. She can be reached at [email protected].
Rev. Dr. Matthew Calkins is the rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Millbrook and a co-Founder of Food/Farm/Faith. He built a timberframe home in Lagrangeville when he was in business as a carpenter and general contractor and he and his family attended Grace. He heard a call to ministry and went off to Union Theological Seminary in NYC. After graduating with a Master of Divinity degree and being ordained in the Episcopal Church, he served in two churches in CT and earned a Doctorate of Ministry degree from Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT along the way. Now he’s back, and delighted to be part of a vibrant faith community with a strong social justice and youth ministry. Reach him at [email protected].
Catherine Belleza is a Food/Farm/Faith intern for the 2015-2016 academic year. She is from Maryland and is a sophomore at Vassar College, where she plans to major in Geography and minor in Sociology. Outside of the classroom, Catherine enjoys photography and going on adventures to new places through food, stories, and traveling. She can be reached at [email protected].
Hannah Snyder-Samuelson is a Research Assistant for Food/Farm/Faith. Originally from Pennsylvania and a recent graduate of Vassar College, Hannah got especially interested in small-scale farming and its opportunities for community building while working at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project in 2014. She currently works for The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts, and can't wait to move back to the Hudson Valley in early 2016.