Neighborhood Farm Initiative

Cathy Anderton moved to the Virginia suburbs of DC as a child in the late 1960's, unwittingly beginning a lifelong love affair with our nation's capital. From exploring the decaying downtown shopping district in the 70's, to volunteering at Clinica del Pueblo in the 80's, to living in an intentional community next to the abandoned Tivoli Theater in the 90's, to, more recently, tending a small community garden plot in Walter Pierce Park, she has found constant fascination in the sites and occupants of this town. Moving back home to DC after five years in Chicago, she found Walter Pierce community garden transformed into a weed field, but was overjoyed to discover NFI. Cathy is a physician by training and works in community healthcare administration.

Bea has been a community gardener and a community garden organizer in DC since 2006. After volunteering at several of the other non-profit gardening organizations in town, she realized there was a gap for a group providing adult gardening education, and thus co-founded and ultimately served as the Program Director for the Neighborhood Farm Initiative from 2008-2012. She co-coordinated the Rooting DC Urban Gardening Forum for the past 5 years, and (along with an NFI intern and NFI adviser) founded DC's Field to Fork Network. Bea currently serves as the Vice Chair of NFI's Board, is the manager of the Mamie D. Lee Community Garden in Ward 5, serves as a Master Gardener volunteer in Prince George’s County, and professionally, Bea is excited to be the new volunteer coordinator at Community Forklift -- DC area's thrift store for reused building materials. She and her husband are also starting to renovate an investment property with dreams of resurrecting a hoophouse in the backyard in which to raise organically-grown transplants, or possibly just some kids.

Originally from Detroit, David recently moved back to Washington, DC after getting a library science degree. He has worked a lot in public libraries but now works on an oral history archive of stories from veterans. He also knits and reads and worked on his own community garden plot for the first time last season. Now, he's very curious about growing food in cities and exploring how groups like NFI and serve the DC community.

Ann Beman lives in Takoma, DC with her husband and two teenaged daughters. In 1999, she left her career in Geographic Information Systems and hurricane storm surge forecasting at the National Weather Service in order to unschool her kids. Since then she has become active in local stormwater management, organizing and managing projects at recreation centers, funded by the DC Department of Environment. She has also been a pioneer in yard-sharing; operating a passive-solar, four-season greenhouse in a neighbor's yard and experimenting in small-scale sustainable food practices through aquaponics and vermiculture in her own basement. She has become active in NFI out of her passion and conviction for the need for broad-based food security, especially for underserved communities in DC.

Susan Trickett is originally from England, but now lives in Denver, CO. She grew up in a gardening family, and after living for 20 years on a treed lot in Fairfax County, is at last happily gardening at a community plot in sunny Colorado. By profession, she is a cognitive scientist, with a special interest in learning and education. She's active in her church, where she has started a small neighbourhood garden, inviting those in the community to help themselves to the produce. She enjoys outdoor activities such as skiing, snowshoeing, biking, and hiking, as well as less energetic pursuits such as reading, needlework, cooking and, of course, eating.

As Volunteer Coordinator from 2010-2011, Liz grew food and got inspired with the NFI crew. Before she worked at NFI, she worked on farms and in food banks. Now she commutes to a farm in the suburbs as the Farm Education Coordinator at the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture. She likes kale a whole lot.