Administrative Staff
Harry Rhodes, Executive Director
Mr. Rhodes has been with Growing Home since 2001. He initiated the first year of growing organic food and training people in 2002, and has overseen the growth of the organization, helping it become a leading social enterprise that operates an organic agriculture transitional job program. Mr. Rhodes is one of the leading advocates for urban agriculture in Chicago. He is one of the founders of Advocates for Urban Agriculture (AUA) and is currently on AUA’s Steering Committee. He has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Wisconsin.
Rebekah Silverman, Associate Director
Ms. Silverman joined Growing Home in June 2007. Rebekah is responsible for program management for our job training program and urban and rural farms. She holds a Master’s Degree from Purdue University.
Polly Washburn, Development Director
Polly brings to Growing Home her background as a fundraiser, public relations specialist, special events coordinator, and her skills as a filmmaker, writer and producer. Over the past decade, Ms. Washburn has successfully raised money, gotten press coverage, and created social and traditional media campaigns for non-profit organizations, university departments, three feature films, and individual artists.
Katy Collier, Development Associate
Ms. Collier has been with Growing Home since the spring of 2010. She is also the CSA registration coordinator and administrative assistant.
Employment Training Staff
Beth Gunzel, Employment Training Manager
Beth has been the Employment Training Manager since January 2009. She holds a Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Between 2004 and 2008 Beth lived and worked in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic as a consultant for a microfinance project serving urban entrepreneurs and small rural farmers. Currently, she is responsible for the overall planning, administration, and evaluation of GH’s Transitional Employment Program. She also works directly with interns teaching classes in job readiness, financial literacy and food systems.
Breanne Heath, Field Training Specialist
Breanne joined Growing Home in March 2010, after working in environmental education, conservation research, and teaching at the Chicago Botanic Garden. She received a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Biology from Earlham College in 2004 where she took courses in botany, chemistry and food ethics. Since then she has immersed herself in growing food in small and unusual spaces, foraging fruit, preserving food and concocting the perfect compost tea recipe. For the past three years she has maintained a private organic rooftop garden and is currently experiencing the joys of raising chickens in the city. As the Field Training Specialist at Growing Home, she teaches horticulture and organic agriculture classes, works with the interns in maintaining their own garden plots, and coordinates with the farm staff and employment training staff to ensure transferable job skills are achieved in the field.
Brad Hirn, Employment Specialist
Brad joined Growing Home in June 2011 after nearly six years of working in Chicago hotels as a server, busser, and food runner. During that time, he met dozens of hotel workers, from Bhutanese refugees to Chicago-born ex-offenders, who had worked with job developers to secure employment.
At Growing Home, Brad teaches classes on job readiness and labor market trends, prepares interns for permanent employment, and reaches out to a variety of employers. He works to expand Growing Home’s outreach to not only urban agriculture and landscaping businesses but also food-service, hospitality, and green-collar industries where Growing Home graduates can apply their skills.
Brad graduated from Northwestern University in 2007 with a degree in Creative Writing and Gender Studies. After work, he enjoys organizing projects with his West Rogers Park neighbors to expand their neighborhood block club.
Shaniece Alexander, Program Assistant
Shaniece joined Growing Home in September 2011 and assists in the overall recruitment, assessment, enrollment and tracking of program interns; coordinates program volunteers, special events, training workshops and tours; and conducts research on topics related to employment training. Shaniece is originally from Detroit, Michigan and graduated in 2008 from Grand Valley State University, with a Bachelor Degree in Behavioral Sciences. She is currently working on completing a Master of Social Work degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Urban Farm Staff
Tim Murakami, Urban Farms Manager
Mr. Murakami is a native Chicagoan. He holds a BA in Philosophy from North Park University. He began farming in 2008, when he lived and worked in rural Virginia as a farm intern at an organization for people with disabilities. Tim coordinates our urban farm sites, and works primarily at our Wood Street Urban Farm.
Elspeth McGarvey, Farm Assistant
Elspeth grew up in Arcola, IL, which is where she started farming on a pumpkin patch. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Political Science, and there helped research the environmental impacts of local farming. Elspeth assists with the urban sites and works the Green City Market each week.
Fred Daniels, Farm Assistant
Rural Farm Staff
Tracy Noel, Rural Farm Production Manager
Tracy is a native Chicagoan, returning to her ‘roots’ after 20 years. She received a Bachelors of Science degree in biology from Northland College in the north woods of Wisconsin in 1988. Since that time, she’s tried her hand at many challenges and occupations including tree-planting, cleaning up after the EXXON/Valdez oil spill, sustainable agriculture research, for-profit and subsistence farming in numerous regions, landscaping, catering, teaching, natural building, tour guiding, fisheries research, and public speaking. Her most recent endeavors while living for 14 years in Oregon, include directing a small non-profit sustainability education organization and a Youth Garden Project, and helping to develop a vibrant movement to support healthy and just local food production for local consumption.
Joe Avon, Rural Farm Technician
Mr. Avon was born and raised in Streator, IL. He first got interested in farming when Ben Walker started working at Growing Home. 2011 marks Joe’s fifth season with Growing Home.
Nathan Vargovcik, Rural Farm Technician
Nathan was born in Illinois, USA. At some point he realized he needed to learn the art and craft of sustainable gardening. He was lucky enough to be presented with an opportunity to do so, in 2007, when friends introduced him to Growing Home. 2011 will mark Nathan’s fourth season farming, and certainly his most anticipated.
Seth Allan Christensen, Rural Farm Staff
Special Projects Staff
Larry O’Toole
Mr. O’Toole has been working in organic farming since 1990. His experience includes apple orchards, CSA farms, rural farms and urban farms. In 2001-2002 he ran the urban garden at the Su Casa Catholic Worker House in Chicago. In 2001 the garden won the 1st place for City Wide Vegetable Garden in the Mayor’s Landscape Award Program. Mr. O’Toole has a B.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Notre Dame.
Seneca Kern, Community Outreach Coordinator
Mr. Kern is an active part of the Chicago urban agriculture and food justice movements. His work with Growing Home, as the Community Outreach Coordinator, focuses largely on the area surrounding the Wood Street Urban Farm in West Englewood. Mr. Kern is also the co-founder of WeFarm America. He learned to grow his own food from his grandmother, and his other interests include eating, dancing, meeting new people, teaching, and learning.
Board
Valerie Denney, President – Valerie Denney Communications
Ivan Handler, Vice President – Illinois Department of Public Aid
Carolyn Ulrich, Secretary – Chicagoland Gardening Magazine
Eric Reese, Treasurer – Chicago Transit Authority
Lauri Alpern – Open Door Advisors
Judith Aronson
Kim Bartko – Bartko Design, Inc.
Javonna Burton – Charter One
Diana Leifer
Garth Taylor – Metro Chicago Information Center
Laura Tilly – Attorney, Miner, Barnhill & Galland
Barbara Wallace – Writer
Advisory Council
Diane Doherty – Illinois Hunger Coalition
Suzanne Malec – City of Chicago Department of Environment
LaDonna Redmond – Institute for Community Resource Development
Karen Singer – Evanston YWCA
Jim Slama – FamilyFarmed.org
Tom Spaulding – CSA Learning Center at Angelic Organics
Margie Muchin Goldblatt – R. Diamond Enterprises, Inc.
Paul Youngstrum – USDA NRCS