Vera is a mom, gardener, and farm-based educator who comes from a family of teachers. She became the Farm-Based Education Network Coordinator in 2013, and observed the Network's potential to connect peers through shared values of experiential learning, joy, equity and inclusion, and a humble desire to grow. Vera believes farms are the best places for relationship building, learning through doing, and connecting with oneself and the ecological communities that support us, and that everyone has the right to these opportunities. Vera's job brings her across Vermont for agritourism collaborations, and throughout the Shelburne Farms campus to eradicate invasive species, harvest crops, teach camp, welcome visitors to the farm, and plan professional learning workshops that nourish the whole person, all alongside a wonderful Shelburne Farms team.
Prior to working at Shelburne Farms, Vera organized conferences and food security initiatives at NOFA-VT, raised livestock and offered education at Philo Ridge Farm, and served as an AmeriCorps member with Cooking Matters Bay Area, and a volunteer with La Cocina in San Francisco. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont and a certificate in Humane Education & Interventions for Early Learners through the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work.
Her favorite days find her working, foraging through her homestead, watching the sunset over Lake Champlain, and sewing locally-raised leather goods for her business, Rhubarb Leather. She lives with her daughter, Ellery Jeanne (born in 2018) and partner, Michael, in Charlotte, Vermont, the town where she grew up.