Rachel Schneider is Director Emeritus of the Hawthorne Valley Farm Place Based Learning Center which focuses on farm based educational programming for children and families and professional training in the vocation of agriculture. Rachel holds a masters degree in Waldorf education.
As part of her work at the Learning Center, Rachel brought the Farm Beginnings whole farm planning program to the Hudson Valley from its original home with the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota, organized a yearly Biodynamic Winter Intensive training at Hawthorne Valley and developed and initiated the “Kids Can Cook” summer camp specifically targeted to underserved children in the Hudson community. Her most recent projects include creating curriculum for the “Real Food Business Planning” course and working with the Bard Prison Initiative to bring a lecture series on the “Emerging Real Food Economy” to inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County NY.
Rachel has been part of management at Hawthorne Valley Farm for the past 20 years. Prior to her current role, she held the position of market gardener and CSA coordinator for Hawthorne Valley Farm. During this time she was able to develop the CSA program and participated in founding the farm apprentice enrichment program called CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) both of which began in 1994.
