Meet Our Team
Grace Julian
Executive Director
Grace’s passion for gardening, education, and collaboration led her to found The Edible Classroom. A Penn State Master Gardener and former Envirothon Coach, she transformed her children’s schoolyard into a thriving garden. That grassroots effort sparked a mission to support outdoor learning across Lancaster County, now offering STEELS-aligned, year-round programs that promote academic achievement, healthy lifestyles, and environmental stewardship.
Community building initiatives and individual student interaction equally fuel Grace’s passion to establish and sustain programs that feed the whole person. Grace describes herself as a “Planter of Seeds” as she moves about in her work elevating the value of people and the earth.
A resident of Columbia, you’ll find Grace taking long walks enjoying the Rivertown beauty with her dog Nora and inhaling deeply in her own backyard as she stops to notice all the little things that have changed in the last 24 hours.
Sarah Ludwig
Director of Finance and Administration
Sarah discovers true joy while spending time outdoors. Gardening, an activity she started with her husband, became a family hobby they shared with their children. Over the years, they established a backyard compost pile and garden beds for fruits and vegetables while prioritizing sustainable practices like recycling and composting food scraps.
Sarah holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a master’s in Language and Literacy. She taught third grade for six years in the School District of Lancaster and loves continuing to support their students. When her children went off to school, Sarah combined her teaching background and love for gardening as a Garden Educator, delivering hands-on lessons that reinforced classroom learning and essential life skills. Now, as an Director of Finance and Administration for The Edible Classroom, she works behind the scenes, supporting the mission to create meaningful experiences for students and the communities they serve.
Amanda joins The Edible Classroom as Director of Operations. She holds a Master's degree in Education and has spent the past 16 years teaching and consulting on meeting the diverse needs of students in the classroom. She is passionate about making education accessible to all learners and believes that meaningful, hands-on experiences bring learning to life while nurturing the whole child.
For Amanda, the garden is a natural extension of that philosophy. What started as a small backyard experiment has grown into a rewarding hobby that continues to teach her something new each season. She enjoys the slower pace and intentional rhythms that come with tending the garden and gathering fresh harvests to share around the table. Amanda believes the garden offers lessons that extend far beyond growing food; it cultivates curiosity, responsibility, healthy habits, and a lifelong appreciation for the natural world.
As Director of Operations, Amanda is committed to supporting The Edible Classroom's mission by building strong systems and relationships that ensure students, educators, volunteers, and community partners all feel equipped, valued, and supported. She is grateful to play a role in helping more students experience the joy of growing food, caring for the earth, and developing lifelong healthy habits.
Amanda Cole
Director of Operations
Bethany Nissley
Early Childhood Garden Education Manager & Instructor
Gardening and farming have been an integral part of Bethany’s life. Even when she was attending Temple University, her hands were always in the dirt in her row-home’s window flower boxes as well as her postage stamp backyard. There was joy in seeing what she could urge the earth to produce.
Bethany has a bachelor’s degree in education and is passionate about hands-on education. She is proud to be a part of an organization that is committed to nutrition, sustainability, and introducing kids to the beauty and magic of the earth. She has years of experience in traditional classroom settings and loves when she can be a part of collaborations that help to reach learning goals!
Along with her husband and three children, Bethany lives just east of the Susquehanna River on a little plot of land that she shares with her dog, 2 cats, and a handful of hens.
Southeastern Pennsylvania is where Mary Antonelli calls home, but during her college years she was positively inspired to grow beyond her familiar surroundings. Her budding interests in environmental sciences and outdoor adventures carried her to New Hampshire, then Montana, where she earned a degree in environmental geo-science and biology. Each unique region also provided her with riveting perspectives on how community-building is rooted in interacting with nature.
Mary describes her career path as a beautiful cornucopia spilling over with expressions of variety. Entrepreneurship sprouted out of obtaining certificates of horticulture and landscape design from the Berkshire Botanical Gardens. On the fringes of the Chesapeake Bay, she worked as crew leader on a diversified certified organic vegetable farm, was a student teacher, a co-leader within her son’s youth organization, and also briefly served as the Program Manager and Home Horticulture Agent for St. Mary’s County Master Gardener Program.
Now in Lancaster, locally grown food, searching for vintage treasures, camping with family and friends, practicing yoga, and crafting continue to bring her joy. She currently operates a landscape design business and is grateful to step into a Garden Educator position with The Edible Classroom. She is thrilled to tap into the alchemy created when kids engage in the school gardens! She believes that their curiosity and hunger for daily discovery, freedom to get dirt under their fingernails, and witness to growing healthy plants that fuel healthy bodies are all epoch expressions that result from this meaningful work!
Mary Antonelli
Laura Heinl is a Garden Educator with The Edible Classroom. She sees great value in sharing sustainable practices, healthy nutrition, and the peace that comes with simply being in the garden with students. She started her career by working in the dental field for 16 years, then furthered her education by getting a BS in Public Health from The University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Her first gardening memories were ones with her grandma when she was a child. She recalls learning so much during those days just ‘doing chores.’ This time cultivated her love for plants, nature, and a peaceful environment. Laura has had her own garden during the seasons of adulthood and has since grown her passion for health, nutrition, and sustainability. She sees all of the lessons that she has learned to be a part of the cyclical patterns of nature.
Laura lives in Lititz, PA with her husband and two children. She enjoys being outside, cycling, gardening, making typical processed foods from scratch like sourdough, kombucha, and jam, cultivating things and helping people grow around her.
Laura Heinl
Sara has lived in and around Lancaster County for most of her life. She comes from a long line of fruit farmers and has fond memories from her younger years working in the garden, picking fruit and selling it at the local farmers market. She can confidently say that there is nothing itchier than picking peaches on a hot summer day, and nothing more refreshing than jumping in a pool afterwards!
A passion for people and a love of learning took her to Millersville University where she graduated in 2005 with a BA in Sociology and a BA in Philosophy. Since then, her life has been filled with a variety of work experiences in many different fields expanding her skills and abilities and honing her core values. The most recent adventure has been homeschooling her two children which sparked a new passion for teaching.
In her free time, Sara loves all things outdoors; hiking, running, geocaching, nature journaling, and has recently started dabbling in watercolor plein air. She is excited to bring her love of learning, passion for teaching, a lifelong love of the outdoors and a desire to inspire the next generation of gardeners to the amazing team at The Edible Classroom.
Sara Lichtenwalner
Marijo Sanson lives in Lancaster City with her 2 year old Labradoodle, Baxter. She enjoys hiking with Baxter everyday in county park. While hiking she discovers the beauty of nature all around. When not hiking she enjoys riding her bike, travelling and reading.
She recently retired from the School District of Lancaster as a fourth grade teacher. Marijo was instrumental in getting the garden at Hamilton, where she taught, established. This garden was one of the first gardens in the district. Today, she gets to work with the wonderful members of The Edible Classroom at Hamilton. She loves to see the thrill on children’s faces when they discover something in the garden. Here students aren’t being graded and feel comfortable in this environment. The garden is a magical place for all. She has learned a great deal working with the incredible team she is part of now.
Marijo has a bachelor of science degree in microbiology from Arizona State University and a teaching certificate from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Marijo Sanson
Carrie grew up a farmer’s daughter and was growing produce herself from a young age to sell at her family's market stands. She has great memories of being covered in dirt on her grandfather’s farm, elbows deep in rows of the infamous Washington Boro tomato. From Alaska to Brooklyn and Rio de Janeiro, Carrie has adventured far and wide, and wherever she has found herself she always seeks grounding and healing in gardening, hiking and being with nature.
Sustainability and connecting people with nature and their food have always been passions for Carrie and she enjoys sharing the magic of the garden with The Edible Classroom students. She strongly aligns with the hand-on, experiential and sensory practices in the garden lessons and the ways these support physical, emotional and mental health in the community. Carrie is currently getting her master’s in Art Therapy and is also in post production on a feature film that is set in the farmlands of Lancaster county. She lives on a small farm in Washington Boro with her family.
Carrie King
Sonja Martin-Roseman joins The Edible Classroom as a Garden Educator, bringing extensive experience in education and program development. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in Special Education from San Francisco State University. Sonja previously served as Project Green Reach Coordinator at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she established the Junior Botanist Program for middle school students, providing opportunities to study biology, conduct experiments, and present findings to a panel of experts. Throughout her teaching career, Sonja has integrated cooking, art, and gardening into the curriculum to enhance math, science, and literacy learning through real-world applications.
Now a resident of Lititz, PA, (the coolest small town in America) ,Sonja enjoys baking, crafting, reading, and gardening in her spare time. Above all, she values exploring new and unique destinations with her two children.
“If I’m an advocate of anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes and at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”- Anthony Bourdain
Sonja Martin-Roseman
One of Heather’s earliest gardening memories is snacking on snow peas and raspberries straight from her family’s garden in Bucks County. Those early experiences sparked a lifelong appreciation for growing food and spending time outdoors. After college, she moved to Lancaster County, where her love of gardening truly took root and continued to flourish.
Heather holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a master’s degree in Education, Curriculum and Instruction. She is a former first-grade and Spanish teacher who is passionate about experiential learning. By combining her background in education with her love of gardening, Heather helps children develop a deeper understanding of the natural world and their role in caring for it.
As a Garden Educator, Heather enjoys leading hands-on lessons that highlight the importance of nutritious food and help students understand the journey food takes from seed to plant to table. She finds great joy in sharing the wonder of the garden with The Edible Classroom students and watching their curiosity, confidence, and connection to nature grow.
Outside the classroom and garden, Heather can often be found tending her own garden, biking along local rail trails, enjoying a good book, or heading to the water for a swim.
Heather Martin
Charlie Thompson was born and raised in Washington, DC, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Horticulture from York College of Pennsylvania. He is passionate about growing plants, building community, and helping people connect with the earth through hands-on learning. Through his studies and work in landscaping, gardening, and greenhouse production, Charlie enjoys helping others gain the skills and confidence to grow their own food and better understand the natural world.
Charlie’s love of gardening began early while working alongside his grandmother in her garden and spending countless hours with his father on his family’s farm in West Virginia. He is also an Eagle Scout, where his experiences in scouting helped shape his leadership, work ethic, and appreciation for the outdoors. Charlie enjoys mentoring and working with young people, including supporting high school students and previously working with inner-city youth through the Unique Learning Center (ULC), where he helped create positive learning experiences and encourage curiosity about the world around them. Whether he is working in a garden, learning something new about plants, or helping others develop new skills, Charlie is motivated by a desire to cultivate healthy environments where both people and plants can grow.