Craig Lapine - Executive Director: Craig founded Cultivating Community in 2001 as an extension of his decade-long work with youth as a coach, mentor, community gardener, and, for eight years, a high school English teacher. Before founding Cultivating Community, Craig had developed and taught a number of innovative curricula related to food and sustainability, including an experiential language arts curriculum for Boston's Food Project.

Craig's first professional experiences were in publishing and communications where he worked for Houghton Mifflin Company, Philip Johnson Associates, and as a freelance. A certified Maine teacher, Craig received an AB in English from Princeton University (1985) and an MEd with a concentration in Teaching and Learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1998).

Jessica Bean - Education Programs Manager: Jessica is a gardener, naturalist, and teacher who practices sustainable living at her off-the-grid homestead in Denmark, Maine. Jessica joined Cultivating Community in 2002 (first as an AmeriCorps member, then as a staffer) and helps design and deliver the educational components of our school-year and summer programs. Jessica attended Antioch College and received a BA in Environmental Studies from Prescott College in 2000. In Honduras and in Boston she has done AIDS education and worked with AIDS patients, and she has tutored youth and adults with limited English proficiency. While teaching 1st grade in Arizona she worked with other teachers to implement place-based education at her school.

Lara Schneider - Grower: Lara is committed equally to organic agriculture and environmental education, and her ten-year career has been almost evenly divided between the two. Joining Cultivating Community as our first full-time grower allows Lara to bring these passions together. Since 1996 Lara has worked on farms in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Missouri, Oregon, and California, cultivating a keen interest in native species plantings and permaculture. She has also done environmental and food systems education in schools and in alternative education settings. She holds a BS in natural resources, horticulture, and forestry from the University of Missouri.

Kae Bosman-Clark - Compost Corps Coordinator and Program & Garden Educator: Kae brings to Cultivating Community skills she honed as a wilderness trip leader, camp counselor, and environmental educator. Kae runs Compost Corps and contributes to a number of programs including our school-year partnerships and summer programs. A native of Milwaukee and 2004 graduate of Northland College, Kae works with Cultivating Community as an AmeriCorps member.

Melanie Shapiro - Volunteer Coordinator, Evaluation & Development Intern: Mel graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 2004 with a BA in Sociology and a minor in Geography. She became interested in urban agriculture as a foundation for community and youth development while in school and is pursuing that interest here at Cultivating Community. She has worked with disadvantaged people in urban landscaping and has a particular interest in improving both the physical and social landscapes in which we live through community food work. She works with Cultivating Community as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member.