Meet Stella!
Little Stella at her family’s perennial nursery
Stella has spent much of her life with her hands in the dirt. She grew up in Jones County, North Carolina, with a perennial nursery in her backyard—quite literally. Her parents owned and ran this plant nursery where they grew all kinds of flowers, trees, and shrubs for sale, as well as vegetables for their family to enjoy at home. She earned her undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from UNC Wilmington and a Master's in Science Education from John Carroll University, but she couldn’t seem to keep herself from hands-on field work: in between degrees she worked at a community garden and after earning her Master’s she taught science at a Montessori farm school in northeastern Ohio. In the summer of 2021, Stella returned to North Carolina with her husband Daniel to begin working on the Farm at New Garden Park as the Farm Manager.
What are some gardening tips? “If you pinch off the growth tip of a zinnia, they’ll branch out and offer you more blooms. Also, always stretch before working in the garden.”
Most of Stella’s childhood years were filled with taking cuttings, propagating plans, and running from greenhouse to greenhouse at her parents’ nursery. When she was a bit older, one of her cousins switched from growing tobacco to growing vegetables, so during her middle and high school summers Stella worked harvesting and getting her cousin’s certified organic produce ready for market. After her parents lost their nursery to Hurricane Floyd in 1999, her father began working as the greenhouse manager for Tryon Palace in New Bern, NC. This once colonial capital’s grounds hosts 5 acres of flower gardens, which Stella volunteered helping her father grow and prepare for display. “I feel like I had a lot of experience with plant life and growing things, from my young childhood all the way through high school, and a lot of opportunities to learn a number of different ways and techniques of growing vegetables and flowers.”
“I always say, ‘You never sleep better than after working on a farm all day.’”
As she grew towards the end of her high school years, Stella sometimes questioned whether she wanted to continue working in a field which left her with muddy hands and a tired body. “I certainly think there was a time of life where I was like, ‘Okay, working outside and laboring...it's just not fun, right? It's hot and it's dirty.’ Particularly in North Carolina during the summer, it's very physically challenging work.” Moreover, in high school, Stella became interested in history and human storytelling. As she realized that environmental science was a blend of the humanities with the science which she’d enjoyed experientially learning throughout her childhood, as well as a field which would give her time in the lab instead of just the hot sun, she chose to pursue that path of study at UNC Wilmington.
Daniel and Stella’s wedding!
What do you and Daniel enjoy doing together? “We love to garden and cook. One of my favorite dishes that we make is a vegetarian chili with butternut squash or sweet potato. At one point I thought, ‘Can you make chili without meat?’ The answer is ‘yes.’ It’s really good.”
While Stella was working a job after graduating with her environmental science degree, one of the 70-yr old volunteers at her workplace set her up on a blind date with Daniel, a Duke Divinity student. Really the only experience with Christianity that Stella had prior to dating Daniel came from occasionally attending a Methodist church with her grandmother when she was younger. “Being around him and his cohort at Duke really opened my eyes to the depth, the beauty, and the truth of Christianity and Christian discipleship.” It was at that point that Stella rejoined the church and began attending the Methodist congregation where Daniel was working as the youth pastor.
Tomato harvesting!
One of the most formative experiences of Stella’s life, in terms of both her faith as well as her interests in people and nature, was her time working at Anathoth Community Garden. Anathoth started as a church mission in 2004 as a “hope-filled response to the murder of a local and beloved store-owner, Bill King.” It currently operates as a nonprofit farm with the mission of sharing food and space with its community. At first Stella decided to work there just because she felt like she hadn’t found her niche yet, and Anathoth would house, feed, and pay her. It also gave her an excuse to be back out farming, which she realized that she’d missed during college. However, once she experienced their cycle of praying together, working alongside each other in the garden, and then sharing a well-deserved meal together, she began to truly love the community and discipleship she found there. One of Stella’s favorite parts about working at Anathoth was delivering CSA shares to local community members. Many of these deliveries were to community members who were confined to their homes due to illnesses or other hardships. These deliveries were less like package drop-offs, and more like pastoral visits or visits from a friend. Stella got to drop by with fresh produce, put it away, and then spend an hour or so chatting with each person she brought food to. “I loved that our work didn’t just end with boxes being filled, closed, and delivered. Getting to build those relationships was really beautiful.”
What book do you unpack first after moving? “Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh is one of my favorites. She wrote it when she was in a beach cottage for the summer and collected seashells. She writes about the different stages of being a woman by looking at these different seashells and the lessons to be learned from their different shapes and colors.”
After Stella’s time at Anathoth and 2 years in the Methodist church, she and Daniel got married before moving to Ohio where Daniel began pastoring a church. It was during this time that Stella earned her master’s degree in science education before working at a Montessori farm school. Stella was a house parent and science teacher for twenty-eight 12 to 18 year-olds who boarded at the school. “And I would never tell this to my teenagers, but they were my babies.” The school’s living laboratory was its 100 acre plot of wooded land and its working farm. “I couldn't have asked for a better place to teach biology and environmental science. We would have field cameras to look at wildlife, do lots of plant identification, and we even had a running master list from all of the previous years that the teacher before me had started of all the species we spotted on our property.” Stella tried to give her students challenging but meaningful projects, such as crafting their own soap to sell—they would have to milk the dairy goats, create their own recipe, and execute a marketing and sales plan at a real market. “I aimed for really meaningful hands-on work that gets kids doing science and outside and appreciating God's creation.”
Part of the Montessori farm school campus where Stella worked in Ohio.
While she loved her time with the kids, Stella’s job as a teacher didn’t get her outside as much as she wanted to be. She knew she’d be moving back to North Carolina, and so she was looking for farm job postings. Since farms usually have their crews set when the growing season starts in spring, Stella was elated to find a position open at New Garden Park. “Having that mixture of Christian life and community with the farm felt very familiar and more rewarding even than what I could have found at a for profit, small farm. And so it felt right. This felt like where God was calling me to be.”
“I'm really looking forward to meeting the volunteers, talking to people while we work, and also the sacred silence when you're not talking but just experiencing the rhythm of this shared goal between everyone working alongside the crew members.” We’re so excited to have Stella as a part of the New Garden Park family and so thankful that the Lord has brought her to us!
