Guidance built on decades-long experience, grounded in real, place-based community-building.

Even thought I started my teaching profession in 2006, my continued inspiration to build up my community mainly came from outside the classroom.

As a gardener, herbalist, yoga teacher and breath work practitioner, I have experience with body systems and ecological systems and how they work. My interest in art, textiles, and ecological systems catalyzed my co-founding of a non-profit, the Rust Belt Fibershed, in 2018. This non-profit helps to create regenerative bioregional textile ecosystems from soil-to-soil.

I was still teaching (and am still teaching), and realized I could bring this exact same framework for community-building and place-making to my students. That was six years ago, and I’ve had hundreds of students complete Ripple projects during my classroom time (and I’m an English teacher!), bettering our communities over the years.

I believe that public education assignments that end with a letter grade is probably one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our lifetime. This world isn’t a simulation. What if we used our classroom time to help students build projects that ripple out into our communities? The impact would be incredible!

I want to share this project and my framework with other teachers.

My dream is to see the Ripple map grow with each year! Plot your student projects on it! Let’s show the world what our students are capable of!