PERMACULTURE - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Co - President
• Founding Member

I first heard about permaculture design from a friend of mine who was working as a farmhand on a sustainable kibutz in Isreal. There, he helped install agroecological systems that produced food for the residents of the kibutz, while maintaining the stability and productivity of the ecosystem around them. That friend eventually moved back to Michigan and start a small organic farm, which is where I cut my teeth farming, and where I developed a life long passion for sustainable food systems and permaculture design. As a Program in The Environment major at the U of M, the time soon came for me to fulfill the field experience requirement for graduation, which led me to a four-month internship at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, Colorado. There I studied under Jerome Osentowski and Peter Bane, completing their Permaculture Design Certification (PDC) course in August 2023. Since then I have spent time teaching gardening and ecology to youth in Nevada, lived in Virginia for the Alleghany Mountain School Sustainable Food Fellowship, and currently work as the Urban Program Coordinator for 4-H Youth Development Programs in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I have remained an active permaculturalist throughout all of these experiences, and I have always been received with open arms by the uniquely welcoming world of permaculture enthusiasts.

After completing an associates certificate in Television Broadcasting and Film Production at Specs Howard School of Media Arts, Madeline attended Northern Michigan University where she studied in the school of Art and Design. When she transferred to the University of Michigan her sophomore year, Madeline felt compelled to become a part of campus life almost immediately, through her participation with the Michigan Hybrid Racing Team, Consider Magazine, and the University of Michigan Ski Team. After becoming the satellite garden coordinator for the Friends of the Campus Farm , Madeline realized that there was a need for permaculture education on the University of Michigan Campus. She met with Nathan Ayers of Chiwara Permaculture L3C and started the Permaculture Design Team at U of M with Evan Granito. Since that time, Madeline has sponsored research in Environment 391: Sustainability and the Campus, passed down the leadership of the Permaculture Design Team to a six person board, and taught a 10 week Honors Freshman seminar. While attending U of M, Madeline studied contemplative studies and nature-based meditation practices, social theory, climate change mitigation and adaptation, environmental science and sociology, and project development. She never wasted a moment here at the University of Michigan, only taking classes that she was fully engage in and creating a network of cohorts from faculty, to staff, to students who all believed in her same vision for this university.