Meet the Team

Melody grew up on a small farm in rural Kentucky.  It is there where she learned how to care for the earth and how the earth cares for us. Her upbringing ignited a love for fostering connections between people and place. Melody went on to obtain a MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Campbellsville University and an MS in Environmental Education from Antioch University, New England.  She has spent the last decade and a half building her knowledge and fostering connections in a handful of different states and countries.  She’s excited to join the work of Seed Savers Exchange and is looking forward to finding ways to further engage with the food system community.

Julia believes there should be plentiful and freely shared local seeds in every community.  She is the co-founder of Going to Seed, an organization dedicated to promoting seed sovereignty and supporting growers to adapt crops to local conditions and community preferences. After transitioning from market farming to seed production at Field of Dreams in Caspar, California, she now shares coastal-adapted seeds with local and online communities. Julia’s service on multiple agricultural non-profit boards has connected her with the challenges small farms face, informing her community-based approach to building resilient, locally adapted food systems.

Nicole Graziano has been passionate about plants from a young age. She comes from a long line of gardeners who carried seeds with them when immigrating from Italy to Canada—instilling in her a deep respect for the power of seed saving as both tradition and a form of resilience. Based in urban Hamilton Ontario, Nicole is an active gardener who believes that growing your own food—and seed saving—can meaningfully contribute to food security and climate resilience. She participates in local seed-saving initiatives and is passionate about inner-city gardening, seed stewardship, and equitable access to food. To Nicole, seed saving is not just a gardening practice—it’s a vital act of stewardship that connects growers to the land, preserves biodiversity, and empowers communities in the face of challenges.

Nicole is currently pursuing a Master’s in Environmental Science and Sustainability, where her research focuses on urban agriculture as a pathway to enhance food security, support climate adaptation, and build a more just and resilient future.

Suzanne Hendrich is a University Professor Emerita, Iowa State University, Food Science and Human Nutrition, living in Missoula, MT and participating in the city’s community gardens since 2018. She grows her own heirloom tomato, Suzanne’s yellow midgies, is a grower for Seedsavers Exchange vegetable trials, and is a past member of the US Department of Agriculture’s National Genetic Resources Advisory Council. She volunteers for the Missoula Food Bank, convenes a nature book club, is active in a local meditation community and in wilderness advocacy through the Shining Mountains Chapter of Wild Montana. Always learning, she strives for a fertile balance of being a good neighbor to wildlife and wild spaces while supporting healthy human communities.

Since saving her first seeds, striped cavern tomatoes, Jill Bishop has been an avid seed saver. She believes seed security is key to food security, and works to build stronger local seed saving networks, teach seed saving skills, and inspire confidence in others to get growing and saving heirloom seeds. After growing seeds for her business, Urban Tomato, on borrowed land for over a decade, she now happily grows and saves seeds on her urban seed farm in Peterborough, Ontario.

You can find me nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Blairsville, Georgia where I work out of the Mountain Research & Education Center as University of Georgia Extension’s Community & School Garden Coordinator. I consider myself a seed saving enthusiast although my husband, who has to move jars of seeds in the refrigerator to get to the soda, may prefer the term eccentric. I enjoy teaching gardeners about all aspects of gardening including beneficial entomology (pollinators!), healthy soil, and seed/plant selection. My current project is the Great Georgia Pollinator Census. The integrity of bean seeds and their role in our North American heritage is a passion for me and I am starting to work with school gardeners to save and grow more seed types, incorporating appropriate geography and history lessons. I am excited to work with this group!

Anna Stange has been saving seeds for nearly 30 years and is still excited about learning more! Anna is the all-around garden volunteer in her current hometown of Blue Island, Illinois. With the help of Seed Savers Exchange’s Community Seed Resource Program, she started an annual seed exchange in partnership with the library, park district and local Ag extension service, which led to starting a local seed library. Anna is currently in the process of mentoring community members to take her place caring for the seed library and a local community garden as she readies for a move to Florida. Her favorite tomato is Luiggi, favorite bean is Midnight Missoula black turtle bean, and she is currently growing out an accidental, purple-podded, black pole bean. Her mission is to keep native, heirloom, and open-pollinated seed stocks in the public commons, where they belong.