Groundswell Announces a New Director

Elizabeth Gabriel joins Groundswell as the new Director in January of 2016, bringing significant experience in leadership, education and addressing food sovereignty.  For five years, Elizabeth served as founding director of Washington, DC-based non-profit Common Good City Farm, where she grew the organization from the ground up; securing grants, turning a baseball field into a productive urban farm, and established strong community-wide relationships with youth and adults. Her passion for equitable food access and her collaborative leadership style was seminal to the urban agriculture movement of the Nation’s Capital.

More recently, Elizabeth served as the Professional Development Educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension. In this role, she developed relationships with educators throughout New York State and created and taught workshops that helped educators with program development, establishing systems for evaluation, volunteer management, fundraising, and program sustainability.

Elizabeth has a background in environmental studies and education and a dual master’s degree in Natural Resources and Sustainable Community Development. She moved back to her roots in the Finger Lakes in 2009, where she and her husband Steve co-own a small agroforestry farm and homestead called Wellspring Forest Farm.

You can reach Elizabeth at elizabeth@groundswellcenter.org.