Staff
-
Jonathan Snipes - Executive DirectorJonathan Snipes grew up on Snipes Farm and now serves as Executive Director of Snipes Farm and Education Center. Believing that nature is the best teacher, his passion is to share the beauty and ecology of the farm with our local community. He spent a summer in Mexico working in rural development and two years providing peace and conflict resolution training in Costa Rica. A year as an intern at the United Nations following college introduced him to environmental and peace issues on a global level. Jonathan has a BA in Spanish language and political science from Haverford College, and a master's degree in education from Temple University. He served 12 years on the Falls Township Board of Supervisors. He and his wife, Melanie Douty-Snipes and sister, Susan Snipes Wells, are dedicated to their five generation family farm as an oasis of good food and environmental learning for people of all ages.
-
Melanie Douty-Snipes - Director of Education; Camp DirectorMelanie Douty-Snipes has been an experiential educator for over 30 years springing from a degree in environmental education from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC. She was an instructor at several outdoor education centers in the U.S.working with a variety of nature study approaches,facilitating low and high ropes course elements and team building, She spent 9 years as coordinator of the Middle School Friends Program incorporating Quaker testimonies of peace, simplicity, integrity, sustainability, community and equality into 58 weekend retreats. Over the past 15 years at Snipes Farm she has developed garden, nutrition, farm and environmental education lessons for farm-to-school and school-to-farm programs for local schools. She and her team have helped to install school gardens, lead farm field trips three seasons each year, have provided hundreds of after school cooking lessons and tied a seed-to-fork curriculum to classroom lessons as well. She co-founded Snipes Farm Day Camp in 2008 which has grown into one of the finest camps in Bucks County and one of the greatest blessings to Snipes Farm.
-
Peter Crooke - Director of FarmingPeter and his five brothers bounded about Bucks County farms since learning to walk, raising hogs and Holsteins at the Buckingham Township dairy their dad’s parents began in the early-1960s and slinging hay bales on Plumsteadville acreage their mother’s ancestors have stewarded since 1809. Trained as an elementary educator, Peter taught for two years in Pennsylvania public schools before several years of youth and urban ministry at his Doylestown home church and in Philadelphia and Atlanta. By late-20s-land he had recaught the farming bug further afield, learning ins and outs of a market vegetables operation near Portland, Oregon and apprenticing in orchard, berry, flower, compost, and veggie production in Santa Cruz, California. He even spent part of a winter glimpsing tropical tricks at a nonprofit organic farm on the leeward side of O’ahu, Hawai‘i. Upon an east coast return he hopped the Delaware to manage The Lawrenceville School’s Big Red Farm for two years, then worked in the gardens of Isles, Inc. in Trenton, New Jersey, where he also lives and grows vegetables, herbs, compost, and flowers with his wife, toddler son, and mother-in-law. A seasoned farmer, teacher, and community leader, Peter passionately connects with youth, congregations, neighbors, and strangers around the deepest roots of social change: land, farming, and food! He earned a BS in Education at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Theological Studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Peter has shepherded Snipes Farm’s Seed-To-Fork summer youth program since 2018 and is thrilled to now lead as a Farmer-Educator with varied duties and projects. He enjoys coffee, many cuisines (recent: Trenton’s Guatemalan pupusas!), novels, ensemble & hymn singing, picture books, songwriting, family gatherings, and his sweet tooth.
-
Mariella Coscia - Assistant to Director of FarmingElla Coscia is the assistant to Victoria, the Director of Farming at Snipes Farm and Education Center. Ella is a lifelong resident of Morrisville, where she grew up visiting Snipes Farm regularly, developing a deep appreciation for nature and passion to care for the land we inhabit. Ella graduated from Guilford College in 2019 with a BS in Environmental Studies and Geology, and shortly thereafter joined the farm team in 2020. She can be found every Saturday in the Big Red Barn working the farm market, and every Thursday at the CSA market. Ella also has a passion for photography and uses her time on the farm to capture different aspects of farm life. Some of her work can be found on the Snipes Farm instagram page.
-
Gayle Boyd - Fund Development DirectorGayle joined the staff in 2016 to assist with fund development and office management. She brings experience from her positions at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Philadelphia; U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY; Anderson House Halfway Homes for Women in Recovery – Whitehouse Station, NJ and Market Street Rescue Mission – Morristown, NJ. Prior to this, Gayle was as an executive assistant and corporate officer with an apparel importer in San Diego, CA. Gayle attended Moody Bible Institute – Chicago, IL; Somerset Christian College – Zarephath, NJ and DuCret School of Commercial Art & Photography – Plainfield, NJ. She has volunteered with Sunday Breakfast Mission in Philadelphia helping homeless women gain employment skills and provided street-level outreaches to the homeless in San Diego.
-
Michele Mullaney - Office ManagerThe focus of Michele's education at Aberdeen State University in Aberdeen, SD and BCCC in Newtown, PA was health sciences and nutrition. She has many years of experience in Patient Services at Penn Medicine in Yardley, PA. She came to Snipes Farm in 2017 to make scarecrows for the fall festival, but since then she has held various positions in the SFEC office and is now the Manager of Operations and Accounts receivable.
