Megan Kemple

Though her parents grew up in Oregon and met at the UO, Megan Kemple was raised in Wisconsin and California until age five, when they moved to Portland. "We did lots of camping in Central Oregon," says Kemple, who developed a passion for the outdoors, majored in environmental studies at Macalaster College in Saint Paul, and taught at seasonal outdoor schools in California, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. She moved to Eugene in 1996, worked four years as middle-school-program coordinator for Sexual Assault Support Services, then seven years as education coordinator for the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides. "And I was volunteering my life away," says Kemple, a co-founder of the School Garden Project, who also donated her time to the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Cascadia Wildlands, and Growers Market. "In 2007, I quit volunteering." She was hired by the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition to coordinate its new Farm to School Program, offering educational field trips to farms and harvest meals in schools. In addition, Farm to School acts as a "benevolent broker," arranging transactions between school districts and local farmers at no cost. Learn more at lanefood.org.