our staff

Sauvie Island Center Staff

Anna Goldrich
Executive Director

Anna has been active in Oregon’s environmental community since moving back home sixteen years ago. She worked to elect environmental leaders, as Executive Director for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters for five years. She has spent the past dozen years working as a consultant for many of Oregon’s best-known environmental organizations.

Inspired by the daily exposure to fun, engaging, environmental education that her own kids get at Sunnyside Environmental School, Anna is excited about the opportunity to make similar experiences available to children in under-served parts of the city.

“I’ve seen firsthand, how kids enjoy eating almost anything they can harvest themselves fresh from a farm, and I love how the Sauvie Island Center gives so many kids that opportunity”.

Jennifer James
Education Coordinator

Jennifer’s great passion for the natural world has been cultivated since childhood. This love was found walking through the fields and ‘forests’ of Ohio and by harvesting, processing and appreciating wild foods and garden-fresh produce. An ‘Alternative Agriculture’ course during college sent Jennifer rollicking into the world of plants and the precious roles they play in our lives.

Jennifer earned a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture at UCSC. Utilizing this knowledge, she taught Propagation and Greenhouse Management to adults through the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. She has also created grant-funded middle school gardens and taught outdoor Environmental Education. Additionally, she has worked on Organic Farms throughout the West Coast of North America, Ohio, Hawaii, and New Zealand, and acknowledges the importance of healthy food in the lives of all beings.

Jennifer endeavors to be active in the education and empowerment of youth, encouraging them to make healthy choices for themselves and Our World.