Alex Stone is the Executive Director of CooperationWorks! and has been deeply involved with cooperatives for over a decade. She entered the world of cooperative models through housing co-ops as an undergraduate and spent time as both a house-level manager and a board member. In 2009, she co-founded the Berkeley Student Food Collective and, in 2010, became the store's first Operations Manager. During this time, she helped the store develop its market, refine its business plan, and grow it into a sustainable business. Alex also co-founded the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (COFED). During her time with CW, she has overseen the redevelopment of the organization's flagship cooperative developer training program, coordinated ongoing collaborative projects among CW members, and strengthened the partnerships with other national organizations. She is passionate about the potential for cooperatives to radically transform entrenched systems of inequality and inequity in our society and to create just, joyful, and sustainable communities.

Alicia Ellingsworth, co-founder and Executive Director of KC Farm School in Wyandotte County, Kansas, grows food, hope, and pathways to a future better than today.

Jacob Chapman is a Miami County producer and small farm infrastructure development and repair specialist and a mentor to emerging growers.

Sharon Autry is the Urban Ag Specialist for Miami County Conservation District. She is a writer, farmer, public speaker and community builder supporting small-scale producers. She stewards Herdsman House Farm in Miami County, Kansas.

David Dods is a long-time volunteer at KC Farm School. He is an environmental engineer with particular interests in water conservation and landscape restoration for people and all life.

Carol Barta is a retired librarian from Manhattan, Kansas. Carol worked in school, academic and public libraries and served as the Assistant Director of the North Central Kansas Libraries System for 15 years.

Carol is a founding member of the Flint Hills Renewable Energy and Efficiency Cooperative. She serves on the boards of the Kansas Permaculture Institute, the UFM Community Learning Center and the Food & Farm Council of Riley County and the City of Manhattan.

Carol received her undergraduate degree from Arizona State University and her Master's of Library Science degree from Emporia State University.

Carol has three grown children and six grandchildren. She lives on a small homestead in Riley County.

Janelle Dobbins is a born-and-bred Kansas farm girl who’s spent nearly four years with Evergy, helping customers understand and use energy more efficiently. She enjoys connecting with people and finding practical ways to make energy savings simple and approachable.

A passionate, family-centered educator, researcher, and dairy goat farmer, Sarah Easdon is committed to bettering the lives of both farmers and consumers. She believes farming should nourish the body, mind, and the soul—and that raw goat milk beautifully supports women through every season of life. Sarah operates Grace Heritage Farms in Fontana, Kansas, where she milks goats, connects with consumers, mentors youth, and shares her loves of faith, family, health, and farming through speaking and education.

Herschel George started as a Kansas State University County Extension Agent.   Through the years he worked as a watershed specialist for Southeast Kansas, he worked to encourage farmers and ranchers to install alternative water supplies for livestock to reduce the livestock impact to the stream and pond.

George has also provided technical assistance to livestock operators to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus content of runoff from livestock areas. “Keeping the poop on the grass, not in the streams and ponds,” George said.

Following his retirement, George has continued to work with K-State and KDHE on special projects and activities across the state, as a consultant.

Heather and Roger Horton are two Southeast Kansas kids (from rural Girard) with a shared passion for artisan bread, fresh ingredients, and meaningful connections.

Heather’s specialty is culinary: she develops unique, seasonal fare that showcases locally grown produce and promotes farm-to-fork fare in their popular Pittsburg, Kansas eatery, TOAST. Roger's specialty is sourdough artisan bread: He crafts all of the breads, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls on the TOAST menu using Kansas grown and milled flours as well as selling loaves to local customers to have in their own homes.

We opened in 2019 in a restored historic building in the heart of Downtown Pittsburg, Kansas. We are community-focused and feature local art on our colorful walls. We’re conveniently located just a few blocks from boutiques, thrift shops, bookstores, and Memorial Auditorium & Convention Center in the Pittsburg Arts District. Just inside our front door you’ll find our TOAST Market featuring Kansas-made products and grab-and-go scratch-made items. On Fridays and Saturdays, you'll find freshly baked loaves of Roger’s artisan breads.

Nick Levendofsky serves as the executive director for Kansas Farmers Union, a position he has held since June 2022.

Nick previously served as the government relations director for Wisconsin Farmers Union from 2020-2022, director of external affairs for Rocky Mountain Farmers Union from 2018-2020, government relations associate for Wisconsin Farmers Union from 2016-2018, and as special projects coordinator for Kansas Farmers Union from 2011-2015.

He grew up on a family farm in north central Kansas where his family still raises wheat, corn, sorghum, soybeans and alfalfa, as well as beef cattle. He lives on the farm his great-great grandparents homesteaded in the early 1900s north of Courtland, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in agricultural communications and journalism in 2010.

Nick most recently served on the board of the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (IATP). He currently serves as the chair of the Kansas Food Policy Council, and serves on the board of directors for the following groups: Kansas Appleseed, North Central Kansas Healthcare Foundation, Republic County Historical Society Museum, Republic County Economic Development Corporation, Republic County Farmers Union, and is a member of the Scandia, Kansas Lions Club.

Maple Creek Urban Farm LLC was officially established as a farm last year, in 2025. We grow our vegetables in an urban area, Kansas City, Kansas. We have been expanding our farm since 2020, when we began farming.  Surrounded by industrial business, we believe we have a small oasis for animals and pollinators. We grow and sell produce out of our farm stand at our own farm.

Rick Mareske, co-owner of The Garden at Dogwood Forest in KCK manages about an acre of mostly blueberries, tree fruit and other fruit, a medicinal teaching garden, a two acre prairie, and 35 acres of woodland. In addition, he is a member of Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance (the oldest multi-farm CSA in the country), an Adjunct Sustainable Ag Practicum teacher at JCCC, and a Backbone member of the Kansas City Farmers Coalition.  Rick has implemented USDA-NRCS practices of high tunnel production, rain water catchment and brush management for the removal of bush honeysuckle under an Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contract.

Ryan O’Neill brings more than 15 years of hands-on experience in farm production and over a decade in natural resource management and agronomy. A conservation specialist focused on soil health and water quality, Ryan serves as a Watershed Coordinator and Certified Crop Advisor, working closely with producers and landowners to implement practical, field-tested best management practices that improve surface water quality and long-term agricultural sustainability.

A fourth-generation farmer and rancher, Ryan pairs technical expertise with real-world application, helping bridge the gap between conservation goals and working agricultural operations. Through his leadership in the WRAPS program, he has helped expand cover crop adoption, strengthen stakeholder education, and drive measurable conservation impact across the region. Outside of his professional work, Ryan ranches alongside his wife and enjoys applying practical ag-tech solutions on their own operation—finding ways to make conservation and technology work in an increasingly busy world

Robert was a kid who liked vegetables. He grew up with a family garden that helped provide tomatoes for the whole neighborhood and a family business that taught him to value all things local. Through Boy Scouts, he developed a deep appreciation for nature and learned to leave it better than he found it. 

Robert graduated from Washburn University with a degree in art, business, and mass media and spent the first part of his career producing events that taught others to live sustainably. He loves lending a hand and organizing complex ideas into workable, simplified systems, recognizing that most of the solutions for healing our planet reside in the wisdom of past generations who lived in greater harmony with the natural world. 

Thomas Smith is the Chief Business Officer for the Kansas City Food Hub, a cooperative association of small and medium-sized farms that aggregate, market, and distribute collectively for the wholesale market in the greater KC metro. The KC Food Hub creates reliable and resilient markets for small family farmers while creating better access to local healthy food to the community. Under his direction, the KC Food Hub has expanded their client base to 35 public school districts and sold thousands of CSA-like boxes to food access programs each year.

Before his work with the KC Food Hub, Thomas was leading a Massachusetts food access non-profit that oversaw a network of church food pantries and hot meal distributions in the greater Boston area. Beyond that Thomas has a background in computer science and anthropology, most notably having previously been a National Science Foundation fellow serving in a technical assistance role for a late Bronze Era dig in eastern Europe. Thomas and his wife moved to Kansas City in 2023 so that she could start a teaching job at her former high school.

Brian began his career with classical French training, and for the next 20 + years, he gained experience in several kitchens throughout the Midwest. He has studied cooking methods from all over the world. In focusing on meat fabrication, fermentation, fresh vegetable preparations, and live-fire cooking, he recognized a vein that runs through every culture’s culinary traditions: fresh is best. He knew that establishing his own farm was a necessary step in evolving his relationship with food.

Kristin has been farming and studying holistic lifeways for the last 20 years. When Brian invited her to join him at The Burning Barrel in 2018, everything came full circle. Growing food to support her family and living on the land has always been a dream of hers. Curating the Events for The Burning Barrel allows her to expand her goals, her passion, and her craft to support the well-being of her family and community.

Susan Welsh is the owner/farmer of Grasshopper Urban Farm located in Wyandotte County, Kansas City, KS. In her life before farming, Susan was a professional chef for many years. Getting to know and encouraging her customers to try different vegetables and fruits is part of the joy of farming. Grasshopper Urban Farm sells produce from the farm and at local farmers markets.