Brooke is a New York transplant who came to Humboldt County to further her degree in Environmental Science. While in school, she worked closely with many local non-profits focusing on issues such as climate and food sovereignty. In the five years she has lived in Humboldt, she established a career working in conservation protecting California's Coast. With her professional and guild work, she hopes to serve the community and strengthen our relationship with nature.

PRESIDENT

Levon Durr has been a certified Permaculture Designer and teacher since 1998. He has been a teacher at numerous permaculture design courses, sharing his skills in wild food harvesting, gardening, natural building, and seed-saving. Levon offers permaculture site assessments and design. He is currently the Humboldt Permaculture president and owner of Fungaia Farm.  At Fungaia Farm, the focus is on healing the earth through mycoremediation and education, and edible mushroom production. You can reach Levon at levonriver@gmail.com

TREASURER

Niki Gribi has an academic background in finance and economics and more than 20 years of experience working with non-profit organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, California Certified Organic Farmers, EcoFarm, the Watershed Stewards Program, and Food for People. She has been an outdoor educator, a market farmer, a program coordinator, an event planner, a communications specialist, and a fruit tree pruner, as well as a parent and gardener. Niki is a long-time advocate for strong local food systems and is also currently serving as Board Treasurer for the North Coast Growers Association.

Sara Marie (she/her) is a mother, farmer, advocate, and community builder. Much of her work has centered around local food systems, regenerative agriculture, and growing networks of care and resilience.

Rooted in both Humboldt County and Southern Oregon, she spends much of her time involved in caretaking, small-scale farming, land stewardship, and grassroots organizing. She cares deeply about local food and medicine systems and helping people build practical skills, stronger relationships, and deeper connection to place. Sara Marie is an advisor for Eden Streets, an organization that fosters healing through farming, and serves on the board directors of Play Street, a nonprofit creating an inclusive play space for disabled and neurodivergent children and families in Eureka.

Sara Marie sees permaculture not just as a gardening system but as a framework for repairing relationships between land, community, and culture. She’s especially interested in the ways regenerative design can support decolonizing work and help move people away from extractive relationships with land and each other.

With the Humboldt Permaculture Guild, she hopes to help cultivate accessible spaces for learning, organizing, and skill-sharing while strengthening resilient local food and community systems. Always into fostering connections you can reach out by emailing Organized.Getting@gmail.com

VICE PRESIDENT

Holly Hilgenberg is a writer, artist, community builder and creative communications practitioner whose love of nature is central to her work. Holly has practiced herbalism, gardening and permaculture for more than a decade, learning through self study, workshops and programs including Earth Activist Training’s Permaculture Design Course. She was an active member of Cooperation Humboldt’s Food team and served on the editorial team for the 2021 Community Food Guide. She weaves art and nature together in her work as Community Director for the Del Norte-based non-profit DiRT & Glitter, in creating art that incorporates natural materials and processes, and in crafting and facilitating community offerings that explore creativity within the experience of nature immersion and working with elements of nature. You can learn more about her work at stainedghost.com.

Natalie has called Humboldt County home since 2007 when she transitioned from a city slicker to off-grid homesteader. She tends a small SoHum farm rooted in the principles of permaculture and regenerative agriculture. The land has provided a living classroom to practice soil building, water management, functional planting design, natural pest management, and make simple, low-cost natural fertilizers. She is a wife and a mother of two, a perennial learner with a portfolio career spanning project management, event design and drafting, graphic arts, and production management and compliance in product manufacturing. At heart, Natalie is an artist whose work sparks conversation about regenerative agriculture, nature conservation, climate change, food sovereignty, mental health, and other fun and timely topics. As a board member she wants to foster community connection around the themes of farming, art, and education. You can reach Natalie nattyd.NR@gmail.com

SECRETARY

Kayla Weiss is a Certified Permaculture Designer and former farmworker with a BS in Landscape Architecture from Rutgers University. Kayla has been working for Caltrans as a full-time Landscape Associate since 2023, where she collaborates with transportation engineers, stormwater specialists, environmental scientists, botanists, and construction professionals to provide planting & erosion control plans for state roadway projects. Kayla's work experience includes landscape design + maintenance, sustainable floristry + floriculture, herbalism, and all aspects of CSA/market farming - from her home state of New Jersey, to here in northern California. Passionate about community-building, food sovereignty, ancestral skills, and the intersection of landscape architecture + agroecology, Kayla is excited to bring her perspective & collaboration efforts to support the Humboldt Permaculture Guild and its mission. kweiss4295@gmail.com