Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

PATTY ALLEN Patricia (Patty) joined Agraria in October as the BIPOC Farming Network Administrative Coordinator. Patty can trace her family legacy in farming back to 1865, when her great-great grandparents along with other African-American families founded an agricultural settlement in Illinois. Her earliest memory of her own agricultural experience dates back to her 1970s childhood in Dayton, when her parents bought her her very own garden plot at Wegerzyn Garden Center, where she grew corn, beans, and zucchini. Aside from occasionally growing tomatoes and herbs in pots on her patio, it would take Patty nearly 40 years to return to gardening and her interest in farming. While a student at Ohio University, she was a stringer for the Dayton Daily News . After earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she spent four years working as a newspaper reporter in Massachusetts. The majority of her career was in public relations. She held communications positions for several organizations, including NCR, AT&T, Princeton University, New York University, and the Episcopal Church. After a long career spent in office settings, the desire to put her hands on the land was something Patty could no longer ignore. By 2016, she began volunteering in community gardens in Cincinnati. In 2017, Patty lived in Oxfordshire, England, and worked on an organic farm. She joined the Episcopal Church’s Community of the Holy Spirit farm residency program in upstate New York, where she spent two years raising vegetables and chickens and tending to Alpine dairy goats and, in 2018, became a member of the Northeast Farmers of Color Network. Patty also has a publishing contract for The Strain of Other Blood: Life of the Reverend Mother from Harlem, a historical biography of a trailblazing African-American Episcopal nun who founded a religious order, two schools, and a farm in New York. ARIELLA BROWN Ariella joins Agraria as Director of BIPOC Strategic Partnerships. She is passionate about serving others and thrives on building bridges between people and finding solutions to everyday problems. She is especially interested in helping build a more equitable food system by lifting up the work of Black and underrepresented farmers through advocacy and serving as a community connector. A native of northeast Ohio, Ariella chaired and has served as lead organizer of the annual Black Farming Conferences since 2020, when the first one was held. She has been working since then to expand BIPOC initiatives and partnerships, including development and expansion of BIPOC Farming Network and development of a Regenerative Fellows Policy Leadership program in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. She worked on constituent services and community- led events for former Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, now HUD secretary, led national urban agriculture initiatives, and served as an advocate for international study abroad programs. She was Associate Director of Gender Equity Programs and Education at Antioch College, overseeing the College’s Sexual Offense Prevention Policy and Title IX and working on diversity and inclusion issues. Most recently, she was Coordinator at the University of Dayton Hall Hunger Initiative working on hunger issues and grants management. Ariella received a master’s degree in Business Administration from Baldwin-Wallace University and a bachelor’s degree in German from the University of Mount Union. She resides in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband and 17-month-old son. Agraria Grows with New Staff 40 AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022