Ryan Fasani, Executive Director

• Ryan is a native Californian who fell in love with food and religious studies separately as a teenager.  He moved to Nashville in 2005 to attend Vanderbilt Divinity School and there learned that they were integrally related.  Upon graduation he began working toward a food secure East Nashville. He firmly believes that Food and basic human needs are always a religious issue and “good” religion always has a concern for healthy bodies and whole communities.  He can be found cooking with his wife, Bohdana,  chasing his chickens, or wrestling with his two boys, Katahdin (5) and Ahanu (1).

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Justin Owings, Garden Manager

• Justin is a native of Kentucky and moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University.  He has been working tirelessly at ENCM for over a year developing Nashville Cooperative Gardens–a network of community gardens in East Nashville, now 5 gardens strong.   He has a keen sense of the complex racial, social, and economic layers present in the food system–and community organizing in general–and thus pursues his work with remarkable sensitivity.  Known to bake artisan breads and eight-green salads, Justin is willing to grow, raise, prepare, consume, and share anything native and local.  He can be found, of course, in the dirt or in the kitchen.

Volunteer Managers:

Donna Murphy, Bookkeeper

Linda Finnegan, Operations

Julianne Jarrett, Director of Programs

Matt Whitman and Justin Smith, East Farm Gardens

Elizabeth Whiting, Inglewood Cooperative Garden

Melissa Snyder, Marketing