Program Manager

Kendra Henry - Kendra is NYC’s new AmeriCorps Program Manager. Previously, she served as an AmeriCorps member working with youth at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee in the SPARK Early Literacy Program. She hopes to use her AmeriCorps experience as a framework to provide excellent support and understanding to current and future NYC AmeriCorps members to ensure they have a term as rich and fulfilling as hers was with the SPARK program. A die-hard Coug, Kendra graduated from Washington State University with her bachelor’s in Political Science and a second major in Comparative Ethnic Studies. She also received a master’s from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Cultural Foundations of Education. During her down time, Kendra enjoys reading, playing sports, and the outdoors.

Americorps Garden Members

Michaela Hammer - Michaela grew up with two sisters and a few cows in Corvallis, Oregon. After high school, she developed a stronger taste for farming by picking cherries near Corvallis, grubbing thistles in New Zealand, and building goat fences in Australia. She studied biology for two years on the Puget Sound before moving back to her home town to finish a BA in Liberal Studies that focused on environmental worldviews and sustainable agriculture. After a full season preparing CSA baskets and market booths at Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, she learned some Andean growing techniques at a few farms in Ecuador earlier this year. She has worked as a naturalist, waste reduction coordinator, biology teacher’s assistant, and most recently a summer camp counselor near San Francisco. Her favorite things in life include bike rides, berry picking, spinning her nieces, and a good challenge, and she looks forward to the challenge of sharing sustainable food production with the Outdoor School students this year.

Rachel Sanders - Rachel has joined Northwest Youth Corps as an AmeriCorps member serving at the School Garden Project. Rachel is an Oregon native, who most recently spent her summer trying (unsuccessfully) to keep black bears out of her cabin in Ketchikan, AK. Rachel has a passion for promoting social change through working with children and sustainable agriculture and spent most of 2010 in Hood River running a middle school garden project and mobile farmers' market with Gorge Grown Food Network. During her undergraduate studies at Bard College in NY state, Rachel founded and ran a hands-on, outdoor education program called Eco-Discoverers, which combined ecology and agriculture to foster a greater appreciation and knowledge of the outdoors in children. Upon completing her B.A. in music, Rachel moved to Panama, where she lived in the rural, agricultural town of Cerro Punta and worked with Grupo Orgánico de Agricultores Cerropunteños (GORACE) as a grant writer, translator and organizer, helping promote organic agriculture in an area reliant on chemical use. Rachel has worked as an outdoor educator and field instructor for programs ranging in location from Austin, TX to California and the Portland area. Rachel is excited to return to her home state with the opportunity to combine her love of healthy local food and working with children here in Eugene.

ODS AmeriCorps Members

Andrea Doerr - Andrea is exploring the Pacific Northwest with the youth at the Outdoor School. Andrea grew up in Wyoming and Colorado, and studied Zoology & Conservation Biology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She then ventured into the world of water, spending two years living on the shore of Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. She fell in love with the conservation corps model of learning working with the Minnesota Conservation Corps in 2008 and 2009, and continued to feed her curiosity about teaching environmental education working as a naturalist at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, MN. The opportunity to combine these two loves at Northwest Youth Corps is monumental, and in the meantime Andrea enjoys cooking, hiking, cross-country skiing, canoeing, biking, running, and most of all laughing.

Brendan O'Donnel - Brendan was born in OK, lived in 2 foreign countries before he was 6 and changed schools every level in his home state of Maryland. His feet have been itchy ever since. Those same feet have taken him up and down the Atlantic seaboard working on sailing tall ships and eventually into the waters of the Great Lakes. Northern Michigan was his home until this past summer he took his passion for education to a traditional summer camp located on Orcas Island in the beautiful San Juan Islands. He is exploring the Pacific Northwest and figuring out where he can contribute positively to tomorrow.

Anjali Seacrest - Anjali joins the Outdoor School this year as Farm to Fork Coordinator, bringing organic produce right from our backyard into the Culinary Arts class and school lunch program. She comes to Eugene from Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she fell in love with the growing local food movement, working with a number of organic CSAs, food cooperatives, and farm kitchens. Anjali also has a degree in environmental anthropology, and has studied traditional home gardening and food security in East Africa. These days, Anjali can just as easily be found in the garden with her apron on, reading about the chemistry of oven-roasting, or convincing high school students that kale is the new Taco Bell. She can think of no finer thing than seeing through the entire process from seedling to dinner table (or cafeteria!).

Kyle Jackson - Bio Coming Soon

Alex Harwell - Bio Coming Soon

Brian Minor - Bio Coming Soon

Hannah Reed - Bio Coming Soon

Rural School AmeriCorps Members

Kathleen Beeson - Kathleen hails from the north suburbs of Chicago and is very much enjoying her rural adventures in Oregon. She has the luxury of living on a farm, which is teaching her a world of skills and country know-how. She is currently serving as the Garden and Outdoor School Coordinator at Central Linn School District. She received her BA in Neuroscience from Knox College, though she beams about all things Biology (most recently, birds and mushrooms). Kathleen plans on continuing her education out west, and in the meantime, enjoys hiking, art, cooking, reading, traveling and her fat barn cat, Larry.

Katy Pelissier - Katy graduated from the University of Oregon with dual degrees in theatre arts and family and human services. As a student, Katy had the opportunity to volunteer as an intern with a variety of local organizations, and developed a strong connection to the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition’s Farm to School Program. She graduated and spent a summer riding her bike abroad before returning to Eugene to settle in as an AmeriCorps member for the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition. She takes kids on farm field trips, teaches about food, nutrition and the benefits of eating locally, and just generally loves the local food world in Eugene. In her spare time she enjoys riding her bike, cooking, raising a cat and going to the theatre.

Marty Walton - My name is Marty Walton. I have been raised in the Cottage Grove area and lived here most of my life. I enjoy the small town lifestyle where everyone knows you. I am lucky to work only five minutes from home and I often ride my bike to Lincoln Middle School where I have my office. A great friend told me about the position at AmeriCorps where I would have a variety of jobs, never doing the same thing twice. I get to meet new people and work with kids. I love to talk and have high energy so I applied for the job with the Northwest Youth Corps and here I am!

Bridget Kerner - Bridget is the new Rural Schools AmeriCorps member serving at Marcola Elementary. She grew up and attended college in Maryland. While in college she traveled to Costa Rica to study permaculture and traveled to India to study environmental resource management. Last May Bridget graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies. Throughout college she worked with the STARS after school program at a local elementary school, it was this experience with education that made her decide to come volunteer with AmeriCorps at Marcola Elementary. Bridget is interested in environmental issues and their connections to larger social issues.

Terri Gardner - I am currently serving at the Oakridge High School for the Americorps (Rural) program with NYC. I have worked in schools for 12 years in Special Education as an Educational Assistant. I really enjoy the challenges of working with a variety of students and this position allows me to continue working with young adults. I was born in Payson, UT but have lived most of my life in the Oakridge area where I went to school, married and raised 4 children. After 26 years of marriage I divorced and became employed by the Oakridge School Dist. I love Oakridge and all the opputunities for outdoor activities that are available to me either by walking or a quick drive into the woods. I took one year off from my job after my last two children graduated and moved to Petersburg, AK, I lived way out of town in a small cabin with no running water except what you collected off your roof into a barrel or packed from a nearby stream or generous neighbors. I got to experience the worst winter they had in 49 years in Petersburg and did not see my car from Oct. until May (snow). In Alaska I was able to do some gill net fishing which was an incredible experience plus some crabbing, shrimping and caught a 75lb Halibut. I was also able to see some beautiful country and great wildlife first hand. I also made some life long friends.

I enjoy being with my family and friends, camping, swimming the rivers, reading and my grandchild with another one on the way. I feel very fortunate to be able to call Oakridge home and live and serve here, where I know just about everyone and it is easy to get to know new people thru the school, students, staff and the many activities that you can still do in a small town.

Kids really are a passion with me, I enjoy their company and appreciate what they bring into my life. I also hope that I am a good role model and can enrich their lives in some way.