Growing Together: Developing Enduring Youth Garden Programs

Em’s vision is grounded in the principle that children are able to realize their full potential when they have access to healthy food and hands-on, outdoor play, and learning opportunities. She is working to ensure the next generations of young people become the tidal wave of social and environmental change leaders needed to alter our trajectory and heal our planet and people.

Em is a nonprofit executive with nearly 20 years of experience leading transformative programs in food systems, agriculture, and education. She holds a B.A. in Public Policy and Anthropology from Hobart and William Smith College and an M.S. in Nonprofit Management from Marlboro College Graduate School.

For as long as Em can remember she has been committed to growing community. She is a passionate advocate for children and the planet and believes that garden-based learning and hands-on, placed-based education benefit both. Em has also worked as a professional gardener and garden designer and spends all of her free time (and then some) digging in the dirt. 

Sarah Pounders has been active in the field of youth gardening for over 20 years. Growing up surrounded by plants instilled a deep love of gardens and the desire to share that love with others. While working toward her master’s degree in Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University, she had the opportunity to serve as a school garden coordinator and conduct research on the benefits of using school garden programs to teach nutrition.

She went on to work at various botanical gardens, for Cooperative Extension in Virginia and Texas, and since 2005 as an Education Specialist at KidsGardening.org, coordinating numerous children’s gardens, writing curricula and activities for youth of all ages, teaching formal and informal youth education programs, and conducting teacher training sessions on integrating gardens into the classroom. She also enjoys gardening at home with her two children and volunteering with local school garden programs.

Sarah Lane (she/her) joined KidsGardening in the fall of 2021. As KidsGardening’s Grant Program Director, Sarah manages multiple grant programs, leads garden installations, and helps the organization with its general fundraising efforts.Sarah grew up in Seattle, WA, and graduated from Washington State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language. In 2016, Sarah moved to Arkansas to serve with FoodCorps at Conway Public Schools, where her passion for working with students in garden spaces sprouted. She earned her Master of Arts in Teaching at Trinity University in San Antonio in 2019 and moved back to Arkansas to be a lead teacher at Ferncliff Nature School, a nature-based preschool in Little Rock, before becoming Arkansas’s first Farm to School and Early Childhood Education Program Coordinator at the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.Sarah lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, on the traditional land of the Osage and Quapaw People. She loves to travel, eat local food, spend time in gardens, and is building her own tiny house!

Noel Nicholas (she/her/hers) started with KidsGardening in the summer of 2022. As Educational Content Manager she helps develop KG’s annual garden-based educational content strategy, co-developing original educational materials, overseeing the editorial calendar and supporting the content marketing plan. She also supports the KidsGardening Community with resource vetting and engagement.Growing up in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, Noel developed a deep appreciation for the natural world while swimming, hiking, gardening and foraging for fruit with family and friends. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from University of Southern California, where she developed a passion for informal education teaching poetry workshops at 32nd Street School/USC Magnet. Prior to joining KidsGardening, Noel worked as a Teaching Artist at Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House, and as a Museum Educator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, developing and delivering programs for diverse, multi-generational audiences and managing NHMLA’s Storytime Live program. For two years she ran a school garden program at Third Street Elementary in Hancock Park for TK through 5th grade students. She feels deep gratitude for having spent her life living on the ancestral homelands of the Kānaka Maoli and the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i and Tovaangar.