About Us: The Team

Nadja Berneche, Gardening Matters' Program Director

Starting in June 2010, Nadja joined Gardening Matters. A resident of St. Paul, Nadja has pursued her interest in community gardens and urban agriculture, leading her to be a homestead grower (and distributor), starting a garden in her neighborhood, and recently nominated to the The Saint Paul - Ramsey County Food and Nutrition Commission. Originally from Michigan, Nadja has an Masters of Social Work and Masters of Public Policy from the University of Minnesota. In her spare time, she can be found watching college (Michigan) football, chasing her three dogs around and restoring an old house.

Mallory Morken, GreenCorps Member

Mallory joined Gardening Matters in September 2011 as a MN GreenCorps member for 2011-2012!  She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, where she studied Chicano Studies, Spanish, and Social Justice.  Food justice is a relatively new passion of Mallory’s, which is a result of her coursework at home and abroad in Ecuador.  She is very excited to put her experiences and education into action and begin her professional life doing environmental justice work.  Her work at Gardening Matters will focus on the Local Food Resource Hubs. 

Rebecca Harnik, Compostadores Project Coordinator

 Rebecca delved into food justice, agriculture, and nutrition through her studies at Macalester College, as well during a semester abroad in Panama.  Inspired while working at D.C. Central Kitchen in Washington DC, an organization that works to empower homeless populations through cooking and food outreach, Rebecca's focus on food and social issues have expanded into gardening, healthy food access, fighting for the community voice and environmental and social justice . An avid bicyclist and composter, Rebecca is working with the Compostadores to improve community-based  composting with an emphasis on sustainability and bicycle operations.  In addition, Rebecca is assisting the Community Garden Gleaning Taskforce with reducing food waste and improving access to fresh produce in the Twin Cities.  

Margaret Shields, Education and Outreach Coordinator

Margaret is a graduate of Hamline University in St. Paul where she studied Spanish and Latin American Studies. She is influenced in her work by extensive study and travel in Latin America, where she interned at a local foods and fair trade market in Ecuador, witnessed the impoverished banana growing regions of Central America, and volunteered on a permaculture and seed-saving project in Guatemala. Compelled by these experiences upon returning to the US, she worked on a CSA farm in MN, and then helped to found a student organization at Hamline that seeks to engage students with their community and foster discussion about environmental and food justice on and off campus. The manifestation of SPROUT’s mission was the establishment of two small community gardens near Hamline’s campus.

Kirsten Saylor, Executive Director of Gardening Matters

In 2004-2005, Kirsten worked with community gardeners to develop the Twin Cities Community Garden Sustainability Plan. In the summer of 2005, McKnight funded the implementation of the plan’s core recommendation, establishing a network of community gardens. This was GardenWorks, which was later spunoff to be an independent organization and renamed to Gardening Matters in 2008. Kirsten has a background in community food security, farming and food systems, sustainable agriculture and received her masters in Applied Anthropology from Oregon State University in 2003.

Lina Rodriguez, Local Food Resource Hubs Coordinator

Lina is thrilled to be combining her passions for food justice and community organizing as the Project Coordinator for the Local Food Resource Hubs.  Lina has extensive community organizing experience, having worked as the Community Organizer for the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association, for Volunteer Alexandria! in her hometown in Virginia, and on projects abroad in Costa Rica, Peru, and Argentina.  As a new gardener herself, she is especially excited to be involved with Gardening Matters and the Hubs program!

We want to give a big thank you to John Brosnan for all his hard work and dedication to the Urban Agriculture Alliance and Land Access Working Group over the last year.  You will be missed- good luck on the next step of your career!

As of June 2010, Ila Duntemann, the cofounder of Gardening Matters, stepped down from her position as Program Coordinator. Ila's dedication and commitment over the last five years has been integral to the establishment and services of GardenWorks and then Gardening Matters. With her energy, we have been able to help hundreds of people and organizations in making community gardens that are more sustainable and assets to their community. Our best wishes to Ila!