Caitlin Leck, Anchor Farmer
Growing up in the Boston area, Caitlin helped her grandmother tend a small vegetable patch; this early exposure to food production made a big impact. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 2006, Caitlin completed the Human Challenge of Sustainability program at the Findhorn Ecovillage, Scotland. It was here that she first learned about Permaculture design and rekindled her love of growing vegetables and participating in a vibrant local food system. Upon returning to the States, Caitlin taught Urban Ecology and Gardening in the Boston Public School system before moving to Portland, OR, where she completed the Farmer in Training program at Sauvie Island Organics and an intensive Permaculture Design Course in 2009. The latter led her to the Bullocks' Permaculture Homestead on Orcas, where she spent four years as the annual garden and nursery manager. In 2014, she founded her edible landscaping business, and co-founded the OCPA project. Alongside her role as an OCPA Anchor Farmer, she works as the Food System Team Coordinator, serves as the Outreach Chair for the San Juan County Agricultural Resources Committee, and sits on the Steering Committee of the Orcas Women’s Coalition. Caitlin believes nourishing food and regenerative farming can act as mechanisms of progressive social change, and has been acting on this conviction as an activist-farmer for over a decade. Through careful attention to the needs of the soil, she is helping food to happen.
Patrick Bennett, Anchor Farmer
As a young adult in central California, Patrick worked on his family's farm using conventional agricultural practices. After realizing that this type of agriculture was having adverse effects on the web of life, he began to discover new approaches to growing food and medicine. He completed a six month course at the California School of Herbal Studies in 1982; topics covered included cultivation, wild crafting and medicinal uses of herbs. From 1983-88, he was involved in developing housing, gardens and infrastructure on an eighty-acre piece of forested land in southern Oregon. Since 1989, Patrick has been the owner/operator of Good Earth Works, an Orcas-based landscaping company thats installs home food gardens and edible landscapes. He is contributing to a resilient local food production system by bringing people together to create gardens and plant food-bearing landscapes.
Laurie Racicot, Anchor Farmer
Laurie is a freelance community organizer and design strategist who works primarily with small businesses and non-profit organizations. She is passionate about the power of art and community projects to build movements and strengthen the threads between social, racial, economic, and environmental justice issues. She has a background in design, art, architecture, outdoor education, and organic gardening. She has a passion for offshore sailing, front-yard vegetable gardening, and backcountry adventure. She is a mother, a farmer, and a maker. She is deeply committed to the idea that community interdependence holds the solutions to our problems.
“OCPA is like a weekly master gardening class for me. Throughout the year, I help install and maintain an irrigation system, mix potting soil, share seasonal chores with others and work with a variety of garden vegetables from ordering seeds to harvest and preserving plants and seeds for next year. It’s a pleasure to be an integral part of a large, well-organized and productive community garden.”
-Steve