New England Grassroots Environment Fund
Staff
In This Section
Cheryl King Fischer
Executive Director
For the past three decades, Cheryl has been an active member of the New England Environmental Community. She first worked in state government as a water resources planner and public participation coordinator. When the land trust community was setting its roots, Cheryl helped form the Lake Champlain Islands Trust, serving as a volunteer board member and then as its chair. In 1983, Cheryl began a ten-year affiliation with the Vermont Land Trust, where she headed its Northern Vermont Program. During that time, she negotiated easement purchases and coordinated donations of conservation restrictions on forty properties involving just over 10,000 acres of northern Vermont farm and forestlands.
In 1993 Cheryl founded KingFischer Conservation, a consulting business designed to help local groups carry out land conservation projects in their home communities. 1996 brought the challenge to organize a brand new organization – The New England Grassroots Environment Fund. With a vision statement, a Fund Coordinator’s job description and two years of committed funding, Cheryl worked with the NEGEF collaboration to create the current organization.
Cheryl holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Hollins College in Hollins, Virginia, a Master of Science degree in Resource Economics from the University of Vermont, and a master’s level Certificate in Medical Technology from St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Cheryl has been staff to or served on the boards of a broad range of non-profit, school and community-based organizations. She is married to Monty Fischer, another life-long conservationist, and they reside Montpelier, Vermont.
Ginny Callan
Program Coordinator
Ginny joined the NEGEF staff in 2001 after serving as a member of the NEGEF Grantmaking Committee. A grassroots activist since the 1970’s, Ginny’s key interests were nuclear power, environmental and human rights issues. As an active member of her community, she also was the Coordinator for Citizens for Clean Compost (CCC), a grassroots group and NEGEF grantee that opposed a sewage sludge composting treatment plant that would have spread sludge on Vermont open lands. CCC was successful in mediating an agreement that included many environmental safeguards on the proposed sludge facility and the construction was eventually cancelled.
Before NEGEF, Ginny worked for the American Cancer Society as the Grassroots Director of Advocacy. She is the founder of the Horn of the Moon Café in Montpelier, Vermont, a vegetarian café that closed its doors after 20 years in business. She is the author of two natural food cookbooks, Horn of the Moon Cookbook and Beyond the Moon Cookbook. Ginny has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goddard College. She remains active in her community and is on the Board of the Central VT Solid Waste District and a Commissioner with the District 5 Environmental Commission. She lives in East Montpelier with her husband Cort Richardson, also a lifelong environmentalist.
Bart Westdijk
Program Director
Bart comes to us from the Netherlands, via New Zealand where he met a Vermonter. While his wife pursued a master’s degree at the University of Vermont, Bart was hired to give some help to a very thinly staffed NEGEF. He represents the next generation of global citizens working to heal the earth and bring real meaning to “think globally, act locally.”
Bart’s interest in local solutions and grassroots initiatives comes from his world travels. His first 20 years of his life he spent in Zwijndrecht, a town close to multi-cultural Rotterdam. His international travels began when he was 7. During summer holidays he and his family traveled to many different countries seeding his interest in different cultures and customs. Before coming to Vermont, Bart and his wife spent a year in China (2004-2005) working as English and Business teachers. Seeing the conditions in which large part of the population lived further fueled his interest in development and local problem-solving.
Bart lives in a co-housing project in Burlington, VT with his wife, Kate, his son, Liam, and Maatje the dog. He rides the bus to work each day, serves on the board of Friends of Burlington Gardens and shares a car with neighbors.
Claire Wheeler
Program Director
Claire joined NEGEF in November 2008, coming to us from the Fund for Public Interest Research, the fundraising arm of the PIRG system in Boston, where she coordinated and managed the national canvassing program for 3 years as the National Canvass Administrator. Before that she worked as a Canvass Director for MASSPIRG and Environment Massachusetts. She is a 2004 graduate of Smith College where she studied Government and the Spanish language. Before working for the PIRGs, Claire interned with an indigenous rights organization in Cambridge, MA and spent her summers working in a kite and toy store in Portland, Maine.
Claire hails from Cumberland, Maine, where her mom and dad still reside, has an older brother and twin sister living in Boston. She is currently pursuing an MBA in Managing for Sustainability at Marlboro College Graduate School.