Meet Our Staff: Ginger Anderson
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In 2019, Oak Spring broke ground on the Biocultural Conservation Farm (BCCF), sited on the Rokeby Farm property. From the first plots and seedlings, the BCCF held the guiding vision of working as stewards to cultivate heirloom crops, and to preserve the cultural legacies associated with them. This is reflected not only in the diversity of crop plants grown but also in the addition of dye plants, fiber plants, and other species that contribute to the rich agro-biodiversity of the region. Many of these plants are grown in the BCCF Walled Garden, which is what makes it a special place for our Education and Outreach Specialist, Ginger Anderson. Working as an educator in Virginia schools for fifteen years, she now leads the charge in creating education programming, partnering with local community organizations, all while also working alongside the BCCF Team.
For our latest “Meet our Staff” Q&A, we sat down with Ginger to discuss her path to Oak Spring, her experience working as a teacher, and her favorite way to engage students with the BCCF.
What brought you to Oak Spring?
I was definitely ready for a new adventure in my life and I knew that I wanted to work with young people specifically and I love working with plants. I loved my job as a teacher, I was one for almost 15 years in the public school system with middle school and high school. In between there I raised my own family and was an entrepreneur and owned a floral business for 15 years. So I was just ready for a new adventure, and the funny thing is, I feel like it was an answered prayer. I put information out and had started to see some things that interested me a bit– but it was coming up on the holiday season and I love christmas and I love decorating with fresh greens and all those things, so I was looking for a place to go make a beautiful wreath that I hadn’t been to before. I had not heard of Oak Spring Garden Foundation. I knew this was the Mellon property, so I signed up to come to the wreath making workshop and it was one of the most professionally run activities I’ve ever been involved in. I was just blown away by the staff and how friendly they were, and then a day later, on my search engine, Oak Spring Garden came up, and the posting for the Education and Outreach Specialist position. So I really feel like it was meant to be. As I did research online the thing that struck me the most was “People, Plants, and Possibilities” and I just loved that. So the more research I did about Oak Spring Garden Foundation, the more I liked it. I filled out the application, interviewed and now I’m here! It’s a really cool story I think.
What were you doing prior to Oak Spring?
After graduating from Virginia Tech I started teaching as an Agriculture Educator in Frederick County at the middle school level, and that was an agriscience program. Lots of STEM, before STEM was talked about, really. Then I moved into the high school curriculum at Sherando High School, I taught there and ran the department. That was more in the horticulture area, so I taught greenhouse plant production, intro to landscaping, floral design, intro to plant systems and also some natural resource classes. After that I left and started my family. I have three grown children now and I wanted to be with them. When you’re a teacher, you love your students so much it’s so hard to have enough love to go around. I knew that I physically and emotionally couldn't do it so I decided to buy a florist business. I went into business with my mom, who had been in a construction field for 29 years. Neither of us had floral business experience. We loved flowers, but we bought a retail florist business that had been in the Winchester area for many years. It was turnkey. We walked in and took over the day that we purchased it and we learned a lot. We took a lot of chances and we were very successful. Then, life happened and my mom ended up passing away and I didn’t want to do it without her– it was our adventure. So then I went back to teaching but again, things in my life tend to align, and I stepped in for a teaching friend and ended up getting a full time position back in education and just kept going. At James Wood High School I taught more horticulture classes and worked with the FFA which did a lot of traveling and competing in plant design, floral design, all types of things. So that’s what I’ve done along with running my family.
Plants have been a big focus for you. Was that interest sparked early?
I grew up on a dairy farm in Clearbook, Virginia and I was involved every day in farm life, that was what I loved and enjoyed. When I was in high school specifically, my agriculture teachers had a huge role in moving me forward with my education and moving me forward with my passion. Originally I had planned to go back home to the dairy farm, and then when I was in college, sometimes life doesn’t always pan out like you planned. Our family went through a divorce and I didn’t have the opportunity to go back to the farm so I switched gears and started taking education classes. I had professors tell me that I should consider being a teacher, so I really went crazy with it in my junior year of college. I knew I wanted to do something relating to teaching young people about the importance of plants, animals, agriculture and nature.
What does a typical day or week look like for you?
It varies a lot which I love. Some days when I don’t have programs I’m working on the Farm. I am part of the Biocultural Conservation Farm Team and I love my team, I learn a lot from them. A lot of what I do is harvesting for program material but also just learning about sustainable farming techniques from them, learning different propagation methods, talking about composting, soil amendments so then I can share it. With our outreach, I really want it to reflect what we care about here, along with other things, but mostly about here, our mission and what we do. So I work with the Farm Team when I don’t have programs or I’m in my office writing curricula, coming up with ideas, or making connections with the community. Then, when I have programs, which are my favorite days, I’m either at schools or working with the local libraries, community centers, Boys and Girls Club, with my gear and whatever teaching materials I’m going to be working with. My favorite thing is to bring them to the farm because I feel like there they get authentic and hands-on learning experiences. They can see what I’m saying and form their own opinions, learn their own things and be creative, so a lot of times we bring kids to the farm for programming. That again is probably my favorite thing. There’s a lot of different things going on and sometimes I’m just trying to create things so that I can share the resources we have here. It’s fun, and I love the flexibility and the variety.
What would you say is a favorite component of your programs at the BCCF?
Oh I have lots. I would say my favorite lesson that I’ve taught a few different times … at various levels is medicinal herbs and my favorite teaching spot is the walled garden for sure. Just because it’s got so much variety in there, so many things that you can learn from and look at. I think that that’s when people really learn, when they can use all their senses and also their knowledge. For medicinal herbs I like to teach them how to grow them, how to propagate them in different ways, to harvest and dry them, how to use that material to make products that are beneficial and then that way they can take something physical home with them. Using the lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus, calendula, and all those plants that are fragrant and beautiful and having them make soaps, lip balms, salves, bath bombs, that kind of stuff. It’s fun and they love it. Their favorite thing is making the native loofa soap, and we use what we grow here which is really cool and we only use natural products so they use natural colorants from plants if they want to color it. It’s a lot of different things that they’re learning, it’s the chemistry behind it, the science, the agriculture component, everything. That’s probably my favorite and the Walled Garden is the reason. Second favorite would be the natural plant dyes that are in the Walled Garden. I took art in middle school and that was the last art class but I’ve fallen in love with art and artists and people that are creative and having some of the artists here share with me the natural plant dyes, how to create them, manipulate them, and sharing that with young people, that’s been really fun. We’ve done watercolors with the Hopi Red amaranth, hopi black dye sunflowers, matter root, turmeric, butterfly pea… So I think that, for the creativity part, and having kids be able to make something that they’re proud of, I like that too.
What are you looking forward to?
Currently for this summer, making more community connections and building partnerships. We’re going to get involved with the Buchanan Hall Farmers Market and do a monthly program for youth which will be great fun and an opportunity to showcase the Fantastic Flora and some of the produce from the farm to get the kids engaged in what we’re growing. That plus our summer reading program. We have a summer reading program in all of Fauquier County libraries to offer programs for teens specifically. The Boys and Girls Club, I’ve got some things scheduled with them as well as Fauquier Parks and Rec. Just busy with camps and activities to keep kids engaged in the summer. I love working with the teachers because I am a teacher and I’m planning some programs to be set up at elementary, middle and highschools for the fall and winter now. Down the road, definitely some curriculum online. I want to be able to offer some specific curriculum related to Oak Spring and some of the things that we grow and do here for teachers, or parents, or whoever wants to use it. I’d love to offer summer camps beginning next year and to serve the youth that don't always have the opportunity to go to camps. And of course just growing the program, you know, more field trips here, more outreach to the school, to the community, I want to go farther out.
Any parting thoughts?
I’m all about young people and opportunity and so if you see an opportunity to just try something that you're at all interested in, you just need to take the chance to do it. Whether it’s internships or job shadowing or any kind of experience like that, I would encourage all young people to really start thinking about their passion and then finding ways to learn more about it to see if they would want to have a career in it one day and enjoy it as much as I have.
Thank you to Ginger Anderson for her time and contributions to this blogpost.