Our Staff
Iris Peppard, Executive Director and the co-founder of Everyone’s Harvest
In 2002, Iris along with four other women started Everyone’s Harvest because they saw a need in Marina for reasonably priced fresh organic produce and a weekly community gathering place. Everyone’s Harvest was fueled by Iris’s California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) senior capstone project through her degree in Integrated Studies with an emphasis on Community Organizing.
Now, as Executive Director for Everyone’s Harvest Iris oversights the organization’s activities including Certified Farmers’ Markets, Edible Education for Healthy Youth, and other special projects. She works closely with public outreach, marketing, and finances and provides overall support to staff. In addition, Iris is the USDA Project Manager for the Service Learning Institute of CSUMB establishing community gardens in Salinas and Marina. One garden is the Chinatown Community Garden, which provides a free public green space to the City of Salinas where local community members can grow fresh produce. The Garden is part of the renewal efforts of Chinatown.
Dia Beltran, Office Administrator
Dia ensure Everyone’s Harvest office activities run smoothly. She takes care of everything from answering the phone to paying the bills. Dia in the past was the Youth Coordinator for The Volunteer Center of United Way Monterey County Caminos Program, focusing on helping at-risk youth in east Salinas. Through this position, she inspired 250+ people to volunteer in Salinas and built networks within Monterey County.
Hugo Perez, Market Manager
Hugo is responsible for the operations of Everyone’s Harvest Certified Farmers’ Markets. He is always on-site making sure everything at the markets runs smoothly from addressing vendor and customer questions to managing the markets’ booths. He is fluent in Spanish and English and started at Everyone’s Harvest as a dedicated volunteer. In addition, Hugo is the Principal founder of CHP Custom Design specializing in residential design for more than six years. He is a student member of the American Society of Interior Designers. He enjoys creating from concept to creation custom houses, major additions, and remodels. Mr. Perez has designed custom housing for private owners in Monterey County and worked on projects for the City of Salinas as an Independent Contractor Designer. Now Hugo, along with being the Market Manager for Everyone’s Harvest, is focusing on interior design at Monterey Peninsula College and looks forward to finishing his degree in structural engineering at San Jose State University.
Emily McDearmon, Volunteer Coordinator
Emily is Everyone’s Harvest newest hire as an AmeriCorps VIP. She is developing and implementing a new volunteer program to improve the markets, Edible Education, and increase services Everyone’s Harvest can provide to the local community. Emily is a California native and a Registered Dietitian. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Clinical Nutrition from the University of California, Davis and completed her Dietetic Internship with the University of Connecticut School of Allied Health. Emily fell in love with Farmers’ Markets while living in Davis, where the bi-weekly Farmers’ Market is a central community event. Ever since, she has been an avid supporter of local, seasonal and organic produce. She also strongly supports programs that make healthy foods more accessible and affordable to the population. Personally, Emily’s favorite hobbies include cooking, the outdoors, and staying active.
OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Kathryn Spencer, President
Kathryn is the Farm-to-School Central Coast Program Coordinator for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). This program brings fresh, locally-grown, and unprocessed fruits and vegetables into school cafeterias across California. In the past, Ms. Spencer led the Monterey County Farm-to-School Partnership. This partnership spearheaded the California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) Farm to College program with campus Dining Services (run by Sodexho USA) in 2004. Since then, the collaboration between the Farm to School Partnership, students, CSUMB dining services, the Environmental Senator, staff and faculty has been so successful that they are looked at as a model for sustainable food service operations. www.caff.org
Bruce Delgado, Treasurer
Bruce is the Mayor of Marina, former Marina City Council Member (00-04), and Fort Ord Bureau of Land Management (BLM) botanist. Bruce’s passion is to contribute to the environmental, economic, and social health of the planet and to encourage others to find connections. He serves on the board of directors for the California Native Plant Society, Monterey Bay Youth Camp and the Chuck Haugen Conservation Fund. www.chuckhaugenconservationfund.org.
Vicki Pearse, Secretary
Vicki is a marine biologist, author and editor of books and other publications in biology; wife, mother, grandmother; nature lover. Favorite activity: walking in forests. She is a long-time supporter of the farmers’ market in Pacific Grove, where she lives, and a fan of farmers’ markets everywhere: they feed her love of cooking and eating. Choosing local food sources is one piece of treading gently on our planet. A founding member of Sustainable PG, she aims for a full, fun, durable life-style. www.sustainablepg.org
Candy Owens
Candy Myers-Owen has a career of over 25 years in the hotel industry as a marketing/sales director, and conference coordinator. She started her own company, The Monterey Bay Menu Collection, which she ran for 11 years, and since has held various marketing consultant positions. Presently, she spends a lot of time volunteering in different areas all focused on making the community a better place. Farmers’ Markets definitely falls into that category!
Dan Shapiro
Dan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Science and Environmental Policy at California State University, Monterey Bay. He teaches undergraduate courses on ethics and environmental policy, social and ecological justice, and community service-learning. He is particularly interested in the relationships between social and environmental issues and how understanding these relationships can generate and motivate community-based educational, economic, and policy approaches to empowering economically and politically marginalized communities, promoting social equity, and creating and maintaining healthy environments needed for the flourishing of all human and non-human communities.