The Garden for the Environment (GFE) is maintained by a handful of dedicated staff gardeners, volunteers, and students. Garden for the Environment is under the fiscal sponsorship of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC). HANC is a non-profit organization dedicated to the resolution and voicing of issues involving San Francisco's Haight - Ashbury neighborhood. HANC has been serving the Haight Ashbury community for over 40 years.

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Blair Randall, our Garden Education Program Manager, has taught in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past five years and holds a certificate in Ecological Horticulture from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to the GFE, Blair served as a CoDirector of Pond gallery, taught Farm and Garden classes at Children's Day School and worked impossible clay soils as Garden Manager at the Nueva School. In 2006 he began managing the Garden for the Environment, an educational demonstration garden, and teaching urban sustainable agriculture classes including the Gardening & Composting Educator Training Program.

Suzi Palladino, our Youth Program and Compost Education Manager, made her way from small-town North Carolina into the city lights of San Francisco in January of 2005. After spending several months traveling and working on organic farms in New Zealand, Suzi landed in SF in January 2005 ready to plunge into the urban sustainable agriculture movement of the Bay Area. She has a long history of working with youth and has a deep-rooted passion for ecological sustainability, environmental stewardship and food justice activism. Prior to the GFE, Suzi spent her days as an Environmental Educator for a local public elementary school as well as a Garden Educator for the Koshland Park Community Learning Garden of the Hayes Valley/Western Addition. Since the Summer of 2006, she has been managing the school programs at the Garden for the Environment. Suzi helps maintain the garden, manages the Compost Education Center and teaches urban sustainable agriculture classes including the Gardening and Composting Educator Training Program.

Check out HANC at www.hanc-sf.org!