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
Operations
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 Administrative Assistant for The Edible Classroom, she works behind the scenes, supporting the mission to create meaningful experiences for students and the communities they serve.
Angie Martin
Director of
Community Engagement
Angie Martin grew up in Lancaster County, where her love for growing things and the abundance that comes from cultivating your own food began at a young age. She has many cherished memories of gardening with her family and grandparents, who lived nearby. Along with enjoying the fresh produce they grew, they also preserved it for winter, sparking Angie’s lifelong passion for healthy, homegrown food.
Angie, her husband, and their three children live on a small farmette in Millersville, where they raise heritage breed pigs, layers, broilers and occasionally other animals for her son's 4H projects. They practice regenerative farming and are eager to expand both their livestock and vegetable gardens in the future. Angie also enjoys exploring and experimenting with different gardening techniques.
With an associate degree in Occupational Therapy, Angie has worked in a variety of settings, including mental health, brain injury, and orthopedics. Most recently, she worked with a company that provided indoor therapeutic gardening programs for seniors in retirement communities.
Angie loves being a part of the team, where, as the director of community engagement she is able to help connect the community to all the good work The Edible Classroom is doing!
Jess Oehme is excited to be joining the team at The Edible Classroom! With a passion for equitable health, she sees value in building the relationship between children and their food and the earth from a young age. With Bachelor’s degrees in Fine Arts and Nursing, a Master’s in Human Services, and a Doctorate of Public Health, Jess’s professional life has included many jobs, including a nurse in the ICU, behavioral specialist, and public health analyst. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to work outside in nature, teaching kids about gardening and the beauty of the earth. Her varied background in health and human services has inspired her to understand systems of health and how we can improve outcomes and create communities of thriving individuals.
Jess and her daughter Vivienne spend a lot of time outside in their garden and little greenhouse. You can also find Jess traveling, hiking with her golden doodle, Rosie, or getting lost in the wonder of an art museum. To channel her creative brain, she got into floral design during her time in the ICU and began photographing her floral creations to capture each one’s unique beauty. Her photographs have been exhibited in downtown Lancaster art galleries as well as local cafes. She has also been a proud member of Lancaster’s Board of Health since the summer of 2023 and is passionate about supporting equitable health for all individuals.
Jess Oehme
Director of Health
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.
Ashley Braungard
Ashley Braungard is thrilled to be a part of The Edible Classroom as a Garden Educator. She was born and raised in Lampeter and currently resides in Lancaster Township with her husband. Ashley obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Millersville University. Some of her previous work experience includes working in family-based therapy, outpatient therapy, providing trauma-informed care to survivors of domestic violence, and working with people who have traumatic brain injuries. On the gardening side of things, she previously worked at a wedding venue as a gardener helping to create a beautiful space for people’s special day. Ashley has a passion for working with children providing psych-educational and social emotional learning groups, and she is excited to have her professional training and her gardening hobby flourish through The Edible Classroom.
In her spare time, you will find Ashley traveling, cooking, making charcuterie boards and homemade jams and bread with her husband, canning, gardening, and exploring the great outdoors. One of Ashley’s most recent accomplishments was obtaining her ServSafe certification in order to learn more about food safety when preparing and serving food.
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
Melanie Hopstetter comes from a rich heritage of gardeners who made growing and preserving their harvested food a lifestyle. She was introduced to this at an early age and enjoyed the entire process from the first seed being sown in the ground, to the canning jars being filled. She continues to enjoy doing this in her own home to provide healthy food for her family. Sharing the knowledge of gardening that has been gifted to her by previous generations, with the children in her community, brings her immense satisfaction. She has a background as a medical assistant, has served for many years in children’s ministries, and volunteered in her own children’s school garden.
Melanie has a special interest in connecting with vulnerable children. She has received training through the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development to understand how to meet the complex needs of these children specifically. Her varied areas of service and training have provided her with the experience and joy of working with people of all ages and abilities. Meeting the individual needs of others is a priority to her as she serves her community. Melanie lives in Conestoga with her husband and four children.
Melanie Hopstetter
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
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
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
Ashley Groff is a Garden Educator with The Edible Classroom. She’s privileged to have grown up in Lancaster County, surrounded by farmland and fresh produce, inspiring healthy eating and living from a young age. Her interest in environmental science grew while completing her Bachelor of Science in biology at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. She studied a variety of environments in college such as coral reef ecosystems while completing a semester abroad in the Turks and Caicos to agricultural ecosystems while working as a student farmer at the Dickinson College Farm. Her love for cultivating fresh produce grew through this position at the farm, leading her to the Rodale Institute post-graduation, where she worked as a research intern studying organic agriculture.
In her free time, Ashley enjoys spending time outside, running, crafting, and experimenting with making bread and kombucha. She is excited to be a part of the great work The Edible Classroom is doing in the Lancaster County community!
Ashley Groff
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
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.