WHO I AM:
I am an artist, writer, cook, hiker, dabbler. If you have entered Sherwood Forest at the top of Hillside, there is a good chance my dogs have barked at you. For the past eight years, my family and I have lived in the last house on the left as you enter the forest. Mark and I hike every Sunday with our hiking group — sometimes around Arden and sometimes further afield. I love the natural world. If you’ve seen my paintings, you will know that the Arden forests are a prominent subject.
INTEREST AND/OR SKILLS:
I have been on the Forest Committee for six years and served as its secretary for four. My role on the committee has been that of communicator and community outreach. We are a committee of five, and our forests are vast. The work takes a village. I see my job as helping to engage the community to take a more active role in caring for our public lands. To that end, I write articles for the Arden Page; facilitate both educational and recreational programming in cooperation with ACRA Summer Program, Gardeners Gild, and the villages of Ardentown and Ardencroft; and engage on social media. More recently I have lead initiatives such as Community Wildlife Habitat Certification; the publication of LEAF (Living on the Edge of Arden Forests) newsletter, which invites those in bordering housing developments and forest adjacent leaseholds/properties to join us in forest friendly practices; and the Forests of the Ardens Patch Program, which encourages people of all ages, but particularly the youth and families, to interact with our forests in a fun, yet productive, way. If elected, I will continue to expand upon this role of forest ambassador. Heck, I’ll probably continue to expand this role even if you don’t elect me. (But someone else will have to take the meeting minutes.)
DATE: 1/28/2021