ReTreeUS Advisory Committee Members
Steph Cesario works for Maine Community Foundation facilitating grantmaking for community-led climate, food, and environment projects across Wabanaki territory/Maine. She has coordinated school gardens and educational farms since 2010 - including a half-acre Living Playground made of woody perennials! She organizes with Maine Farm and Sea to School Network and a variety of Maine food system initiatives, and stewards medicinal herb gardens with her spouse in Freeport.
Daniel Feller received his PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University and is the Director of Data Science at Rightway Healthcare. He advises ReTreeUS on digital strategy and marketing. Dan enjoys adventures outdoors, including hiking, swimming, skiing and surfing.
Jonah Fertig-Burd is a Community Partner at the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation providing leadership for the Food Systems. He is also a farmer and co-owner of Celebration Tree Farm & Wellness Center a multi-stakeholder cooperative in Durham, Maine, where he lives with his wife and two children.
James Ford is the Restorative Practices Coordinator for the Lewiston Public Schools. He is the former Restorative Practices Coordinator for Lewiston High School. He is currently a member of the State of Maine’s Board of Education. He has a wife, 2 sons and 3 grandchildren who keep him smiling.
Willie Sawyer Grenier is the Director of Maine Agriculture in the Classroom, introducing agricultural concepts to teach conventional subject matter in grades Pre K – 12 to educators across the state. Willie and her husband Mike have 2 children and live and garden in Albion on a section of the original family farm.
Ryan Parker is the FoodCorps Impact and Partnerships Lead, Maine. Ryan joined FoodCorps after working with the Natural Resources Council of Maine to establish Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, and writing the book, literally, on school food waste reduction.
C.J. Walke works at the Chase Farm in Freedom, Maine, a 20 acre mixed vegetable and flower farm that also owns and operates Chase's Daily, a farm-to-table vegetarian restaurant and fresh produce market in Belfast, Maine. C.J.'s agricultural experience includes 15 years with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and 10 years managing an educational farm for the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. He and his family live in Swanville, Maine, where he grafts and grows fruit trees and native trees and shrubs for FEDCO.