Rachael joins Farm Catskills as our first full-time AmeriCorps service member. Having just graduated from SUNY Oneonta with a degree in Environmental Science and a passion for local food systems, she is a great asset to the Farm Catskills team. Her focus for 2012 will be on identifying opportunities for the use of more local farm products throughout the County. She is looking forward to meeting our local farmers and learning more about what they have to offer.
Shana Eaglefeathers
2011 & 2012
Shana will be working with Farm Catskills for the second summer in a row. Shana will continue the great work she started in the summer of 2011.
In 2011, Shana helped launch Farm Catskills' Harvest Days program, which resulted in over 2,100 lbs of local produce being purchased from farmers, processed and frozen for use by the Walton United Methodist Church Community Soup Suppers, Delhi Central School food service and the Delaware Opportunities Food Bank Network. Nearly 1,000 pounds of produce were harvested before the garden flooded in late August. Shana is a science teacher at Margaretville Central School.
Hana Payne
2010
Hana continued building the connections Liz started the year before, and working with Farm Catskills' AmeriCorps VISTA member, Mary Pysnik, she began fostering local farm connections with SUNY Delhi. The 1,835 lbs of fresh produce from the garden supplied three food banks, the WIC program, foster care homes, six senior meal sites, a senior community and the Head Start program. Hana also spent many a weekend at a farmers' market in NYC selling dairy products from five to six local goat and cow farms.
Hana is now farming in Pennsylvania.
Liz Sigler Schaefer
2009
Farm Catskills' first AmeriCorps Service Member, Liz, enabled the purchase of 2,250 lbs of local produce from nine local farms for use in the Delaware Opportunities' senior meal program. She also maintained the Delaware Opportunities garden, the produce from which was distributed through the Food Bank Network.
