Kristin Blodgett (she/her) manages the Vermont Farm Fund, a non-profit loan fund for farmers and food producers that operates as a program of the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE), where she was first Financial Manager and then Deputy Director. Prior to joining CAE in 2015, Kristin worked on land and natural resource management programs in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and served as Assistant to the Chair of the UN Committee on World Food Security Open-Ended Working Group on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests. Kristin was born and raised in Vermont and lives with her family in Monkton.

Nora Brown moved to Vermont from Massachusetts in 2020 to attend Middlebury College, where she is studying geography and food studies. Working on farms in high school inspired her interest in food, a passion she has continued to pursue since coming to Middlebury. 

Since 2021 she has lived in Weybridge House, the college’s local foods house, including two summers working as the house’s preservation intern. Through this work she had the chance to meet people working in all areas of Vermont’s food system, and she was inspired by the resilience and passion for local foods she found. Nora is excited to continue learning and supporting Addison County’s food system with ACORN. 

Neily Jennings (she/her) heads up finance and operations as one of twelve worker-owners who cooperatively own and manage the Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA). Prior to joining AORTA, Neily spent 5 years as Operations Director at Common Ground Center, a non-profit retreat center in Starksboro, where she still lives with her husband and their two young kids.

Neily's dedication to ACORN's work is rooted in her belief that we urgently need to democratize local food systems and land stewardship as part of a just transition to an economy that centers ecological sustainability and equity. When she's not in Zoom meetings, Neily spends her time parenting, listening to podcasts, reading, cooking, biking, and swimming.

As a dedicated advocate for food sovereignty and climate-friendly agriculture, Emily is thrilled to contribute to ACORN's work to cultivate a thriving, ecologically sound, and socially just local food system. She is the Marketing and Communications Coordinator at NOFA-VT and came to that role after having spent more than a decade in food systems education and community outreach at the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op. She engages in this work with the goal of both fostering a meaningful connection between producer and consumer and inspiring deep admiration for the hands that feed us. In addition to her ACORN board service, Emily is proud to serve as co-chair of the Addison County Hunger Council through Hunger Free Vermont. She and her husband tend a subsistence-scale produce and mushroom farm and a retail perennial plant nursery called Taproot at her home on Snake Mountain in Weybridge, VT. When she's not working, Emily enjoys skiing, climbing, trail running, foraging, fermenting, and experimenting in the kitchen.

Susan has been involved in local food production since purchasing a farm in New Haven in 1974. Grass-fed beef production, retail yogurt making, and organic vegetable sales harmonized with child-rearing on the farm and a focus on food self sufficiency for a family of six.

A fifteen-year stint as a buyer of organic food ingredients for Earth’s Best Baby Foods led to the creation of an Addison County local foods directory which Susan manages for ACORN’s Addison County Guide to Local Foods and Farms. Susan continues to cultivate a lush garden in New Haven.

Lindsey spent seven years in marketing, advertising and PR in the private sector before escaping the cubicles of New York City to find herself nestled in the vines of Mendoza’s wine country as a harvest intern.

What was meant to be a five month hiatus became a five year journey around Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. A transformative role at a Peruvian disaster relief organization convinced Lindsey to continue working in the non-profit sector, and time spent with a Guatemalan coffee cooperative, an Australian organic farm and various WWOOFing properties locked her into the food justice movement for good.

Lindsey and her partner Matthew founded a food education tourism project, Origins of Food, that reconnects people with where food comes from.

Lindsey joined ACORN in 2015 as the Director of Marketing and Development and has served as Executive Director since 2021.

In addition to working to improve small farm viability and food sovereignty, Lindsey serves on the 350VT Board to further build community resilience.

Lilah Krugman graduated with a degree in Food Systems from the University of Vermont in 2023. She first became interested in food as a tool for social change while working on an urban farm in her hometown of Atlanta, GA. Since then, her passion for food and its role as a catalyst for transforming broken systems has only grown. During her time at UVM, she had the thrill of exploring her interest in food and community both inside and outside the classroom. She is most proud of the work she did through her club, Food Recovery Network, which redistributed prepackaged meals to the campus community, and her senior thesis, which centered on the Addison County Farmacy Program.

Lilah began working with ACORN as the 2022 Food and Farm Guide Intern and Farmacy Intern. Almost two years later, she is excited to explore what each day brings at ACORN as the new Programs and Outreach Coordinator! Outside work hours, she loves exploring the TAM with her dog, preparing and eating baked goods, and watching movies.