Greg Peterson is an urban farming and sustainability innovator who resides at the Urban Farm, an environmental showcase home in the heart of Phoenix. He opens his home weekly for tours and classes, not only telling people, but showing them, how he has been able to make a living through urban farming for over two decades and how they can do the same.  Greg also runs Urban Farm U (UrbanFarm.org), filled with online courses designed to educate and inspire others to grow food for themselves and others.

Some of Sara’s greatest memories growing up were of sewing with her grandmother Bella. When she combined her love of sewing and making old things new again with the overabundance of plastic bags Sara Bella UpCycled was born; a company that up-cycles consumer plastic bags into beautiful, wearable art for both the runway and the everyday.

Nikki Silvestri has had a long history of working to support environmental justice and growing sustainable communities. As a Co-founder of Live Real and former Executive Director of People’s Grocery and Green For All Nikki has built and strengthened social equity for underrepresented populations in food systems, social services, public health, climate solutions and economic development. Now as a Co-founder and CEO of Silvestri Strategies she is working to support thriving communities, economies and natural environments.

Cindy Blain had a background in marketing and tech but wanted a life for her family out of Silicon Valley and closer to nature. She has worked with environmentally focused non-profits such as the Presentation Retreat & Conference Center and Sacramento Tree Foundation. Now, as the Executive Director of California ReLeaf, she is at the helm of not just any non-profit but a network of over 90 organizations throughout California that are dedicated to planting and caring for trees in the urban forest. In this conversation we go behind the scenes of California ReLeaf, discuss how trees improve every facet of our lives and consider how sprawled cities can learn a thing or two from the compact development of smaller countries.

In today’s episode I talk to you about a few things that came up for me over the last few months that caused me to stop recording for a while.

Well I am happy to be back on the mic once more and in this episode I announce some cool stuff I’m introducing to the show.

Jennifer Bristol is the State Coordinator for Texas Children in Nature which connects over 300 organizations with the children & nature movement in Texas. Prior to becoming the first State Coordinator for TCiN she created award-winning conservation education curriculum and youth development programs for Camp Fire and served as a park ranger for Texas Parks and Wildlife.