Lisa Winkler
Q: What is your role within New Perennials?
A: I am the community program director with New Perennials. My work includes community outreach, program management, liaison with partners and potential partners, and identifying new opportunities for New Perennials to delve deeper into our community—both on campus and in the broader community. I’m constantly looking for ways to develop collaborations within the concepts of New Perennials—nourishing roots within regions and deepening our relationships that have the possibility of mutually beneficial outcomes. I also work on potential funding opportunities and the nuts and bolts of administering a grant-funded program.
Q: What drew you to New Perennials? How did you first become involved?
A: I have a wide variety of interests—a few being food systems; environmental sustainability or as close as we can get; the arts; economic, racial, and social justice; and I have done a fair bit of community organizing. I was working in the grants office at Middlebury when New Perennials came to the College in 2018. My role was to assist Bill and Nadine with the ins and outs of administering a grant within the context of the College’s systems. I was very interested in the work they were doing and attended a few of their presentations and conferences. The overlap of New Perennials’ work in the five spheres of education, the arts, health care, communities of faith, and farming was familiar to me but newly intriguing in this perennial context. The community/relational side of perenniality was not something I had heard before—it’s quite a concept.
Long story short: A few years ago, serendipity intervened, and Bill and I had a meeting to discuss the possibilities of working together on New Perennials projects. We talked about all sorts of ideas, concepts, what he had been doing, what I had been doing, and we decided to give it a go. I am extremely fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. I am enjoying this work tremendously, and I am learning so much from all our partners, teammates, students, and of course, Bill.
Q: What are some recent projects you have been engaged with or are currently working on?
A: We just wrapped up our second semester of our newest program—Community Roots Apprentice Fellowship (CRAF). During the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters, 10 students (5 per semester) worked with 10 community practitioners (5 per semester) to cross-pollinate and learn from each other. These pairings were carefully selected so that the students were working on subject matters with which they were not completely familiar. The fellowships ran for nine weeks and fellows spent approximately 20 hours working with their practitioners and completing their final presentations. CRAF is designed to open a world of ideas to fellows and practitioners and offer them an opportunity to constructively engage with each other, to discuss and practice learning as it evolves in a variety of contexts, and to imagine and develop interactive, multi-generational, and non-hierarchical learning communities. We’re excited to begin our third iteration this fall.
Last fall, we held an event and exhibit, Radical Pamphlets Past and Present, in collaboration with Middlebury College’s Special Collections Department showcasing historical pamphlets in their archives as well as contemporary pamphlets published by New Perennials Publishing. The event included a panel discussion by scholars familiar with the various forms and uses of the pamphlet, and five recently written pamphlets, including works by Brian Donahue, Kathleen Smythe, Lindsay Pontius, Matt Schlein, and Middlebury students Kylie King, and Mary Nagy-Benson.
We’re just wrapping up a new batch of radical pamphlets written by a second cohort of students and partners. We are also launching an audio version of these pamphlets—Hear&Now: Radical Pamphlets for Our Times. Stay Tuned!
We have been working with an array of community organizations to provide small infusions of support, and we have been assessing our work with our community partners and identifying how we can best deepen our commitment to mutual aid and self-organizing.
We are very fortunate to be able to work with amazing interns on various projects—all of our events and exhibits, an animated video in the conceptual phase, social media outreach, and projects initiated and carried out by the interns, such as Communi-Tea Time at 23 Adirondack. I am impressed on a daily basis by their creativity, curiosity, and caring.
In the future, we’d like to explore collaborating with the Bread Loaf School of English and/or the Bread Loaf Teacher’s Network. The pamphlet as a means of social change aligns well with their pedagogy. There are other departments we’d also love to connect with.
Q: What are some of the meaningful learnings, unlearnings, and relearnings you have explored as part of the NP team?
A: One of the beautiful parts of this work is the latitude and longitude given to ponder something that may or may not have sustainability—to develop it, implement it, and then assess its efficacy. The learnings have been frequent and fruitful. A conversation with Bill, working with our interns, overhearing an attendee at one of our events talk about the insights they gleaned, discovering there is overlap in New Perennials’ vision with myriad departments and community organizations. It’s amazing how the notion of perenniality slips right onto the rhythms of others’ work in so many spaces and places.
Bill is a wonderful teacher. His approach is often more conversational than moving into something with a preconceived idea. We have the incredible gift of exploring and thinking and questioning.
Some of the relearnings have taken me back to the grassroots organizing I did years ago. I’m relearning roots and relationships specific to a region and conjuring a longer-term perspective rather than thinking about immediate impacts.
Q: What is your favorite part of this work?
A: All of the above. I like talking to and meeting all the different people who are part of New Perennials’ orbit. I love working with our interns, and the CRAF program allows us to reach even more students.
Q: What are some of the most memorable New Perennials events or moments, in your opinion?
A: It’s hard to single out a few memories—I think in general, what stays with me is the moment when you see or hear an idea solidify—either for yourself or someone else. When something comes into view that was previously unseen. The “aha’s.” Those happen a lot around here, and I’ve learned to keep an eye out for them.
Q: Have some of the terms, concepts, and philosophical perspectives promoted by New Perennials (i.e., perennial agriculture in educational systems) shifted your perspective on any aspect of your life? On your daily routine? On climate change?
A: My perspectives have lived around the edges of perenniality for years. I called it something else, but the notion of working together for long-term, sustainable objectives has touched all my work. One of the shifts I am pondering as I do this work is that there may not be an immediate answer, we may only have more questions. As a development fundraiser, this is definitely a shift!
A great example of broadening one’s perspective: I sent my brother-in-law (not someone who shares my worldview) all the New Perennials books, and he has started to grow Kernza on a small plot in Tennessee. How cool is that!
Q: What is one way that you go about seeking joy that might surprise someone who doesn’t know you very well?
A: I’m at heart an optimist. I’ve wandered a bit lately. So, joy is a bit more elusive, but swimming brings me joy. Getting to Queen Bee brings me joy. Bluebirds and Great Blue Herons bring me joy. My family, my dog, and my friends are joy.