Shannon Murphy Email and Phone Number

Born and raised in New Jersey, Shannon identifies herself as a farmer and educator. Her passion for farming began with a curiosity about the interconnectedness of the food system.Shannon’s relationship with food changed once she apprenticed on her first farm. She fell in love with growing food and cooking it, and wanted to share that feeling and knowledge. As she gained knowledge and wisdom from nature, it was incumbent upon her to share. Shannon is a proponent of food and land sovereignty, and the value of green spaces.In Newark over the past two years, Shannon has been doing hands-on gardening and cooking lessons through the arts and sciences in the classroom and garden. She has also led cafeteria taste tests, school and community events, summer camp, and stewarded school gardens as food sources and outdoor learning environments. Overall, she has been tending the soil for six years. She foraged onion grass and edible flowers as a child.Shannon hopes to inspire others like herself that the current education system doesn't work for, by offering hands-on garden based lessons that foster therapeutic self-expression, inquisitiveness, creativity, community, and self-care. Food justice and education are social justice. She will always be a part of growing food and tending the soil. Growing food and sharing it are the heart of what she does, and connections with people are the basis of everything. It has been said about Shannon that “the radish plant and flower represent her whose rooted connection to the earth and land is aspirational for others.”