Meet Our Team
Grace Julian, Co-Founder
Grace Julian's love for gardening, dedication to teaching, and enthusiasm to work collaboratively have culminated in the founding of The Edible Classroom. With education from Penn State Extension’s Master Gardener program and experience as an Envirothon Coach, she enjoys bringing science to life in the garden. Her heart for bringing good things into children’s lives was put to the test when she started a grassroots initiative in her children’s elementary school...transforming an unused playground area into a learning garden. It was through this experience that she saw the value of establishing a partner organization to help schools accomplish their goals for learning in the natural world since it’s a task that becomes so much more.
Creatively engaging the minds and hands of students makes her heart sing. Nature opens a book that many children can enjoy reading if just given a prelude. Whether you like bugs, butterflies, eating veggies, feeling the warm sun on your face, or sitting in the shade of a Mammoth sunflower, a school garden opens the door to more.
You can find Grace in her happy place most evenings, walking around her garden at the end of the day, breathing in the fresh air and noticing all the little things that happened in the last 24 hours. Grace lives in Washington Boro with her family and Nora the dog, her walking buddy.
Beth Horst, Co-Founder
As co-founder of The Edible Classroom, Beth Horst believes that fostering curiosity in the garden, learning the sustainable practices of growing fresh vegetables, and sharing new food experiences are opportunities that all children should enjoy.
After several years as a middle school educator, Beth spent time raising a family and cultivating a garden of her own. Her background in education combined with years of home gardening and serving as a volunteer coordinator for a school garden-startup, prepared her for her co-founding role in The Edible Classroom. Beth finds working collaboratively with schools, the community, and her gifted Edible Classroom team immensely satisfying. She especially loves teaching children how to prepare the food they’ve grown and watching them try new vegetables. She also loves engaging children in the composting process. Her experiences in the garden with children and families affirms her belief that the garden is a master teacher.
Beth holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Bloomsburg University and a Teaching Certificate from Millersville University. When not in the garden, Beth enjoys being outdoors, hanging with her family, reading, listening to podcasts, and trying new recipes in her home kitchen. She resides with her husband and their family in Conestoga along with their faithful pup, Timber.
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.
Karen Smith
Karen Smith has been an educator for the past 12 years. She has a passion for sharing knowledge with students that supports the whole child's well being. She has taught music, nutrition, mindfulness, social emotional learning and gardening! She loves interacting and building relationships with the curious minds she encounters.
Karen holds a bachelor's degree in Nonprofit Management and has spent the past seven years working in non-profits within the community. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Education.
She has a background in vegetable and flower farming, holds a permaculture design certificate, and a Master Gardener certificate. She is truly excited to share her passion for the natural world and experience growing food with future generations.
Laura Heinl
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.
Lela Stech
In her twenties, Lela Stech completed a Masters in Elementary Education and planned to teach. Life had different plans for her though, and she spent 24 plus years being a professional wife and mother. Her family moved to a variety of states in the US and also lived in Cairo, Egypt and Moscow, Russia. After a big life pivot, she found herself back in Lancaster County and had the opportunity to work with The Edible Classroom.
Joining The Edible Classroom ignited a passion in Lela she didn’t know she had. She's a farm girl and loves being outside, so working in the gardens is a perfect place for her. Her favorite parts about The Edible Classroom are the goosebump moments… from a child making a new discovery, learning the positive impact on the community, to a great harvest. Working with The Edible Classroom lights her up!
When Lela's not taking part in gardening activities, you can find her creating mixed media artwork, helping her father farm, or working with her family's business. Other things that light her up are spending time with her adult children, her family, walking her dog, and chilling with her cat.
Mary Antonelli
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!
Melanie Hopstetter
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.
Sarah Ludwig
Sarah Ludwig has always said spending time outside is truly where she belongs! Being in nature is what makes her soul happy. Gardening was a hobby she and her husband started that they included their children in as they grew up. Over the years, they established a backyard compost pile and garden beds of your most common fruits and vegetables. Sustainable practices are also very important to her family. From recycling cardboard, paper, styrofoam and metal, to composting food scraps, they are always looking for ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle!
When both of her children went off to school, she sought out an avenue to put her teaching background to use in a new way. The Garden Educator job provides the opportunity to work with students and teach valuable information through hands-on experience that supports what they learn in the classroom and can also be transferred into everyday life skills. Combining her education degree with a hobby has been the perfect match and she regularly says, “I love my job!”
Sarah lives in Leola with her husband and two young boys. Prior to being a Garden Educator for The Edible Classroom, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, a master’s degree in Language and Literacy and taught third grade for six years in the School District of Lancaster. She enjoys continuing to work with students in the district where she got her start as a teacher!
Angie Martin
Angie Martin was born and raised in Lancaster County. Even as a small child, she always enjoyed growing things and the feeling of abundance that comes with growing your own food. She has many fond memories of working in the garden with her family and my grandparents, who lived beside them. Along with eating the fresh produce they raised, they also preserved it to eat throughout the winter, which gave her a passion for growing and eating healthy food!
She, her husband, and three children moved to a small farmette in Millersville last year, where they currently raise heritage breed pigs and two steers for 4H. They use regenerative farming practices and hope to expand their livestock and vegetable gardens soon! She also loves to learn about and experiment with different types of gardening approaches.
Angie received her associates degree in Occupational Therapy and has worked in various settings, including mental health, brain injury, and orthopedics. Most recently, she worked for a company that provided indoor gardening for seniors living in retirement communities.
Angie is excited to be joining the Edible Classroom team and to help them further their mission of cultivating academic achievement, healthy lifestyles, and environmental stewardship through garden-based, experiential learning!
Jill Roach
Jill Roach grew up in Nebraska, where she first discovered the magic of planting seeds when she helped with the family garden. She has fond memories of shelling peas with neighbor kids on the back porch and learning what okra was when it grew from a mystery seed packet! This love of being outdoors and making the land fruitful has carried over to her own tiny backyard with her own tiny people, now in Columbia, PA.
Jill attended Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL), where she received a degree in Elementary Education. She taught fifth grade in Nebraska, then worked with an educational ministry in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina. After moving to Pennsylvania to start a family with her awesome husband, Nate, she put teaching on hold to enjoy her role as a stay-at-home mom.
Jill is very excited to be part of The Edible Classroom team and engage young people in the wonder of gardening! She also enjoys riding her bike, reading a good book, and creating art.