Writing home

A
s Jan Melchior, Ivy Greenstein and I finished the Fall 2007 issue of the Alumni Maga-
zine, we were already discussing editorial and artistic themes for the Spring 2008 issue.
It seemed we all had houses on our minds. Between my many moves, Ivy’s restoration
of her Rockland County farmhouse and Jan’s home-as-perpetual-construction-site, the
subject loomed large in our conversations. We spoke about what makes a house a home. Think-
ing about our Waldorf alumni and their holistic approach to living, we wondered what their ideas
Contents
f e a t u r e s
about making “home” might be. From reading the Fall 2007 issue, we knew there were many
Green Meadow alumni engaged in the building trades. Wouldn’t it be interesting, we thought,
to invite them to write about their work? Great idea! We read carefully through the Magazine’s
Class News columns searching for names, solicited more names from Tony Cirone, and developed 14 A C a l l to Ac t i o n , Mick Follari ‘90
Green Meadow a list of alumni whom we knew worked with houses and homes and set about tracking them
Alumni Magazine down. Alas, we could not find contact information for everyone on our list, nor did we hear back 1 8 E v o lu t i o n o f a B u i l d e r , Elliot Berkowitz ‘92
Spring 2008 from everyone we tried to reach, but each one who responded to our call for articles did so with
wonderful warmth and enthusiasm.
Director of Development When their articles started piling into my email box in January, I was in for a big surprise. 1 9 F r o m a n t h r o to e n v i r o : t h e s to ry
Vicki Larson
(845) 356-2514 x 311
While we, as editors, had been thinking about hearth and home, our Waldorf alumni had some-
thing far more dynamic and forward-thinking to write about! As I read their articles, I thought
o f E co Ha n dyma n , Nate Burger ‘94
vlarson@gmws.org
back to a year ago when Peter Almasi ’93 wrote his “Global Climate Change” article for the Maga-
Associate Director of
Development
zine. That single article, like a pebble cast into a pool, has had a remarkable ripple effect. Late 2 1 Sma l l Ha n d s Fa r m , Julia K. Altes ‘97
Chris Delaney
last spring, Kenneth Mankoff ‘96 came to GMWS to make a customized presentation of Al Gore’s
An Inconvenient Truth to the high school students and faculty. Talking with him afterwards,
(845) 356-2514 x 304
cdelaney@gmws.org I learned that after reading the Alumni Magazine, Kenneth had immediately called Peter to 23 A List of Four, Sherab Kloppenburg ‘92
Alumni Coordinator
talk about their mutual academic interests. What I had always hoped for had happened: Green
Ivy Greenstein Meadow alumni from different classes were making connections with each other through the 24 At H o me i n t h e W i l d e r n e s s ,
(845) 356-2514 x 330 Magazine. Kenneth’s enthusiasm for countering global warming lead him to write “A Simple
igreenstein@gmws.org Change,” about replacing incandescent light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL), for Thomas McArdle ‘91
Alumni Magazine Editor our Fall ’07 issue.
Candace Stern In this issue, too, you will find the same passionate concerns for earth tending, this time
expressed from the perspective of designing, building and maintaining the built environment.
26 Teac h e r feat u r e : Nyq ua n ’s B o o k s ,
(201) 264-8100
cstern@gmws.org Here, you will read about strawbale and rammed-earth construction; houses designed, built, re- Deborah Schaeffer ‘01
Design/Production Manager stored or updated using recycled materials; and other eco-friendly techniques. You will also read
Jan Melchior about historic preservation, land conservation, and living outdoors. Our authors have taken great d e p a r t m e n t s
jan@janmdesign.com inspiration from nature; their deep and abiding love of mountains runs through many of their
Photographers articles. Their innovative, creative spirits breathe light and life into each challenge and opportu-
Julia ‘97 and Tristan K. Altes,
Elliot Berkowitz ‘92, Nate Burger ‘94,
nity they meet. At a time when Americans are loosening their connections with nature and when
the construction and housing industries have been seriously depressed, it is heartening to know
Co mm u n i t y New s
Mick Follari ‘90, Ivy Greenstein, that their idea of home is more comprehensive and expansive than the one we had first imagined:
Sherab Kloppenburg ‘92,
Ray Manacas, Thomas McArdle ‘91,
Home is not just a building that shelters us from the elements. Home is also the Planet Earth, 4 G reen Meadow
Martha Paradis-Evans
which shelters, nourishes and sustains us all.
It is clear that environmental awareness is not just a matter of academic interest to these
Editorial Office Green Meadow alumni. They are seeking solutions to the many challenges of global warming by 8 Sunbridge College
Green Meadow Waldorf School
307 Hungry Hollow Road
actively leading the way with materials reuse, waste reduction, recycling, and utilizing alterna-
Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977 tive energy sources. We can be rightfully proud of their important contributions to the design, 8 Threefold
Green Meadow Waldorf School construction and maintenance of homes across the country, and, even more so, for their deep and
publishes this Alumni abiding love for the home we all share here on Earth. And right behind them, Green Meadow high
Magazine two times a year in school students, the next generation, are developing their skills and gathering knowledge – and 9 Fellowship Communit y
Fall and Spring. after school, some are building robots. It will not be long before they, too, enter the work world
and when they do, they will bring with them solutions and innovations we can only imagine!
Editorial Committee
Jennie Abbingsole ‘91 1 0 Alumni
Jennifer Brooks-Quinn
Ivy Greenstein
Jan Melchior
~Candace Stern, Editor 2 9 w h at w o u l d s t e i n e r s ay ?
Ann Stahl
Alexis Starkey ’91
Candace Stern
Cover Photograph: The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, California, June 2005, by Thomas McArdle ‘91
30 Co n t r i b u to r s
Community News
and math heroes were simply not
valued by young people in the same
way rock stars, athletics champions,
and movie idols were. Kamen set
out to create a venue that would in-
by field trips, a featured speaker and
a panel of four speakers. The week
culminates in a display of what the
groups have learned. This is a time
to learn something new and have fun
School News
that all of the students learned and
received a lot throughout the week,
but I also hope they had fun.
High School

faculty green meadow waldorf in design, demonstrated team spirit, spire young kids to be scientifically
and technologically challenged—
doing it!
This year, the High School Week
Metalworking
Michael Witri
sunbridge college
gracious professionalism and ma-
something so exciting that it would Planning Committee consisted of
school A
turity, and the ability to overcome new addition to the ninth grade
obstacles. Scoring the most points be as exciting as performing at a Fiona Cansino, Dylan Farrell-Bryan, curriculum is metalworking. 
community threefold
fellowship is a secondary goal. Winning means
building partnerships that last. “On
rock concert. In 1989, he founded
FIRST, an acronym meaning: “For
Aidan Nelson, Sundi Powers-Adler,
Adrienne Sibrizzi and me, and was
Our ninth graders are not just learn-
ing about blacksmithing and copper
educational foundation pfeiffer the playing field there are a bunch of Inspiration and Recognition of Sci- headed by the wonderful Green work, they are doing it!  When work-
three-inch rings and different types ence and Technology.” By 2007, 37 Meadow high school teacher Mrs. ing with copper the students make
center eurythmy spring valley of goals,” Madsen describes it. “The
teams are trying to gather rings and
score them on goals. The goals move.
competitions were held around the
world. Kamen remains the driving
force behind the organization, and
Christofides Lowenthal. We came up
with the theme of Isolation and Com-
munity. We wanted people to see
useful objects, such as bowls.  Mrs.
Volpe teaches copper work; I teach
blacksmithing. Many people think
It gets pretty fast and serious.” continues to gain support and pub- the difference between the two, and of blacksmithing as putting shoes
G r e e n M e a d o w N e ws The Poly-Gnomes spent a couple licity from major corporations, uni- how we live our lives based on those on horses.  That is a specific kind
of months thinking about how they versities, and colleges. two ideas. The workshops that were of blacksmithing done by farriers.
could create a robot that would win “The way these events occur is offered were African Drumming,
In the High School... alliance that won the Snow Day Generally speaking, blacksmithing
the game. “The students have to very exciting,” says Madsen. “There’s Jewelry Making, Cooking, Poetry,
Showdown tournament in Hights- is making things that are useful and
constantly apply all the physics and loud techno music, it’s all highly ani- Ecological Footprint, Conflict Reso-
Poly-Gnomes Green Meadow Robotics town, N.J. on December 15—an ornamental from steel.  
math they’ve been learning; weigh- mated, and it’s very exciting for the lution, and Aikido. The field trips
Front (l-r): Team Wins event that is part of FIRST, an in- To begin, we take a piece of
ing the costs and benefits of using kids. It’s nothing like a spelling bee were to Liberty Science Center, art
Nicholas Frei, Championship Alliance ternational program designed “to steel, heat it in a forge until it is
one design over another,” says Mad- or a science fair; instead there’s in- galleries in New York, a Mystery Trip
Noah Kaplan, inspire and recognize excellence red hot and then bang it with a
Sung-Ryul Moon Winslow Eliot sen. “And without a lot of money to tense animation, excitement, yelling, to New York, People to People assis-
in science and technology through hammer until it is the shape needed. 
screaming. And what’s really great is
T
Rear (l-r): hey’re called the Poly-Gnomes. robotics co-opertitions.” The Poly- invest in research, they have to be tance, and caving (spelunking). Our It sounds simple when described,
Charles Rudish, They are a group of eight creative. There’s a maximum of ten the gracious professionalism that panel speakers were Assemblywom-
Gnomes robotics team includes but I think elemental is more de-
Mr. Madsen,
Green Meadow HS students who students on any team, which means imbues everything we do in all the an Ellen Jaffee, Vicki Forster, alum
Alexander Evans, Alexander Evans, Nicholas Frei, scriptive.  It is a great activity for
design and create robots. And they that everyone needs to be active and competitions. Dean Kamen’s ideal Jemal Gulum ‘03, and Carol Galione,
Sung-Pil Moon, Noah Kaplan, Gavin Langdon, Aid- anyone, but especially for ninth
made up half of the championship participate. This is a terrific place of helping your competitors perme- Director of Programs from People to
Gavin Langdon an Nelson, Charles Rudish, Sung- graders who hunger for cause
for these students to be. It takes a ates every aspect. Being a monopoly People. The week progressed well,
Pil Moon, and Sung-Ryul Moon. and effect, and tangibility
Team members gather together lot of physics and programming to and destroying everyone else doesn’t with many adventures on the field in their efforts.  It is rare
after school every week under the get the robots to do what they want help anyone. Helping each other trips, and everyone seemed to have that a student has experi-
The S-Hook
guidance of Green Meadow High them to do. They’re computer whiz- helps everyone. And you see that in a great time. ence with hot steel and
School robotics coach and physics zes; they are great at playing com- the competitions. The students are Our featured speaker this year was so at first they are a bit
and math teacher, James Madsen. puter games, but with this program all helping each other, sharing soft- Brian Turner, a poet who has served intimidated.   But as they
Together they strategize, plan, that FIRST offers, they can get re- ware, helping with spare parts.” in Iraq. He read many of his poems experience the activity and
program, and build. ally creative.” This article excerpted from an ar- and spoke of his experiences before see the results those feelings
The FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST emerged from a strong ticle by Winslow Eliot that recently leading the poetry workshop. Most dissipate and they bang away
challenges teams to design a robot personality, a New Hampshire en- appeared on AWSNA’s new website: of us were surprised to discover that freely.  Unlike wood and fabric, if
that will win against a robotics game trepreneur called Dean Kamen, whywaldorfworks.org someone who had fought in Iraq had you make a mistake with metal, usu-
designed by FIRST founder Dean with several scientific patents to High School Week many of the same views on the war ally all you have to do is heat it up
Kamen and a committee of engi- his credit. In the late 1980s, he saw 2008 as we had. His poetry had the ability again and bang it some more. The
neers and other professionals. Stu- something occurring in the United to turn the horrific things he expe- pedagogical notion of having a pic-
dents are rewarded for excellence States that troubled him: Science Jessalyn Traino ‘08 rienced into beautiful works of art. ture in one’s head and bringing it to

Students are rewarded for excellence in design, E very year, the high school sus-
pends its normal classes to let
students explore certain areas of in-
demonstrated team spirit, gracious professionalism and terest for High School Week. There
maturity, and the ability to overcome obstacles. is always a theme and different
workshops that relate to it, joined
I know I am not speaking only for
myself when I say that he was one
of the most inspirational speakers I
have heard.
Our week ended with a wonderful
presentation from every group. I hope
life with one’s hands is in full bloom
at this point.  As they trust them-
selves more and more, the students
are impressed and even amazed with
what they can make.  We start with
basic techniques, such as learning

 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 

Community News
to make a round rod square and a
square one round.  Next we move to
pointing and tapering, and then we
work with moving material around.  Melissa Barton ’11, Cate Sandstrom
At this point the students are ready
to put their skills into practice and
start making actual things.  Green Meadow students from
Our first project is to make hooks
beginning with the S-hook. S-hooks
are used for suspending something,
such as a pot over a fire.  Then we
make a drive hook, which is a hook
with a pointed right angle at the top
that can be driven into a tree or a
wall to hold something.  Then comes
the J-hook which can be hung on a
shelf or sometimes there is a hole in
it so that it can be hung on a nail.  designed to show both their interest
Each of these projects employs skills
with which the students are already
comfortable and which also adds
something new.  Next, we practice
making leaves and when we have
mastered that, we make a letter
opener with a leaf handle.  All of
these projects are practical and can
be useful.  such as the Fall Fair, a Green Mead-
As the years go on, these simple
everyday objects will provide our
students with a reminder of who
they once were, as well as how
they got to where they are pres-
ently. It will also remind them
of one of the ways in which they
worked through something they
did not understand at first and
Metalworking:
brought it to its conclusion.  Meadow community, the Student
John Robertson,
Grade 9
 | Alumni Magazine
Taking the Initiative
Ivy Greenstein, with reporting by
‘11, and Jessalyn Traino ’08
T
his past year, more than a dozen
all four high school grades, band-
ing together and calling themselves
the Student Initiative Group, proved
what can happen when the desire
to give turns into action. With no
faculty advisor directing them (but
with teachers and other adults on
hand to dispense advice and assis-
tance when called upon), this group
took on a number of service projects
in the world beyond Green Meadow
and their insistence on taking the
lead in carrying out their work.
The teens’ first project was the
sale of Waldorf-inspired Peruvian
dolls made by a collective of poor
women in Lima. Profits sent to Peru
from selling these dolls at venues
ow kindergarten parents’ evening
(with its appropriate discussion
topic of “Warmth”) and Sunbridge
College’s Waldorf Early Childhood
Conference will serve to better the
lives of the collective’s community.
Next, the students turned their at-
tention to the children of Africa. En-
listing the generosity of the Green
Initiative Group put out a call for
crayons, pencils and other art sup-
plies which were collected and do-
nated to orphanages and children’s
hospitals in Rwanda. Joining forces
with GMWS third grade students
and parents, the high schoolers then
created three gingerbread houses
(made with nearly 100% organic in-
gredients, including candy decora-
tions, from our local Hungry Hollow
Co-op!). Raffled off at December’s
Holiday Assembly, the $400+ ginger-
bread house profit was forwarded
to children in African hospitals and
orphanages. For Valentine’s Day,
the Student Initiative Group joined
with Green Meadow’s Parent Hand-
work group to create Waldorf-style
dolls as another way to benefit those
in need in Africa. A $10 donation
bought a doll-inspired card—also
produced by the teens—to deliver
the message of love and giving to
one’s Valentine here, and a gift of a
doll to the children there. Thus far,
Rwandan hospitals and orphanages
have received over 80 dolls and gifts
totaling several hundred dollars from
this “heartfelt” activity. Projects to
benefit those in need closer to home,
including a food drive for Rockland’s
People to People and other local
hunger organizations, are next up on
this dynamic group’s agenda.
Two Nights Only
Charles Sherwood Rudish ‘10
Y es, The Drama Club continued
after its inaugural year this
year with a production of “Guys and
Dolls.” There are nine of us who
meet on Tuesdays not only to act,
but also to just have a great time
telling jokes, complaining about
teachers—you know, the usual.
When we started “Guys and Dolls,”
we were pumped, but after a while,
we got really scared. There was
so much to do in so little time. To
tell you the truth, there were times
when I thought we’d never pull it
off. But after working like crazy the
two days before, the lights went up
Community News
NEW GMWS WEBSITE IN THE WORKS An Invitation from
We are happy to report that Green Meadow is in the midst of a long-await-
ed revision of our school website, including creating a brand-new website for the GMWS Bulletin
our alumni. We hope you will use it to share news and happenings with one
Lisa Kreisel Wolfe ‘77
another; learn about school news, campus events and upcoming reunions; Editor, The Bulletin
and reconnect with former classmates via a brand-new online directory (an
innovation for us, but one which will save printing costs, postage and trees!). As this Magazine attests, the insights,
Keep checking in at www.gmws.org to see when the new site will be up and perspectives, and experiences of Green
do let us know what you think! Meadow alumni are inspiring! Bringing
alumni voices more often to our bi-weekly
school newsletter, The Bulletin, offers our
While on their September trip to Hermit Island, Maine, this year’s 12th graders whole school community an opportunity
stopped off at Merriconeag Waldorf School to visit former GMWS English teacher, to learn more about these members of
David Sloan, now Chair of Merriconeag’s new high school. Accompanying the class our Green Meadow family and their lives
on this annual rite of passage were senior class advisors John Wulsin and Jennifer today.
Brooks-Quinn and alumni chaperones Anna Booth ‘99 and Deborah Schaeffer ‘01.
If you’ve logged on to our website re-
cently and followed the links to current
or past issues of The Bulletin, you’ll notice
that we’ve added a new column: Alumni
Corner. Contributors to this column
have ranged from Brendan Oswald, Class
of ’92 (and now a GMWS parent himself),
reflecting on the role his Green Meadow
education has played in his profession as
a teacher, to Elizabeth Volpe ’04, describ-
ing how her decision to enter the world
of investment banking was informed, in
part, by Green Meadow’s emphasis on
curiosity and well-roundedness.
Please help us enhance this alumni col-
umn with stories of your experiences and
adventures. Perhaps you would like to of-
to full houses both nights. We thank
the audience for giving us the op-
portunity to perform, and we hope
fer a biographical sketch, or share photos
of your current surroundings, a recent
trip, a special event or an artistic project.
to see you next year.
The Bulletin is published 19 times each
Editor’s note: “Guys and Dolls” was school year, from September to June. I
performed in the Arts Building on would be happy to receive your submis-
February 5th and 6th. If you wish sions at any time. Please send them to me
to be alerted to the schedule of fu- at lwolfe@gmws.org or (845) 356-2514 x
ture Drama Club performances— 301.
as well as other Green Meadow Alumni can read both The Bulletin and
events—make sure we have your The Alumni Magazine online by going to
email address and we’ll be happy to www.gmws.org and following the links.
send you advance notice!
Andy Petersen (left)
and Alex Evans (right)
Spring 2008 | 
Community News
Sunbridge
Co l l e g e N e ws
Julika Stackelberg-Addo
W hen you are asked about your
education and respond: “I went
to a Waldorf school,” you probably
encounter a myriad of responses,
ranging from interest or familiar-
ity, to a blank stare. Even though
the Waldorf school movement is one
of the fastest growing independent
school movements globally, with
over 1,000 schools in 64 countries,
Waldorf education is still largely
unknown. As a Waldorf graduate
who has bumped into other Waldorf
graduates in some of the most re-
mote places on Earth, this phenom-
enon stimulates a burning question
for me. How can an education that
is forward thinking and widespread
not be better known?
Being active in the field of educa-
tion for a number of years now, I have
become aware of the fact that there
is a lack of quantitative and qualita-
Browsing in the
Sunbridge tive research that demonstrates the
College benefits and potentials of Waldorf
Bookstore education. In light of this fact, I am
 | Alumni Magazine
thrilled that Sunbridge College was
recently re-accredited and will con-
tinue as the only independent de-
gree-granting anthroposophical col-
lege in the English-speaking world.
Why? Because being accredited as
an institution of higher education
in today’s world means that rigorous
standards and requirements have to
be met. It means that the College
will continue to foster research ac-
tivities by its faculty and students,
which is a first step to making Wal-
dorf education better understood
and more accessible to educators,
students of education, and prospec-
tive teachers.
As you can imagine, expanding
the quality and quantity of research
on the value of Waldorf educational
methods will not happen overnight.
However, I am excited to say that
Sunbridge recently hired Chris-
tine Shakespeare, Ph.D., (a Waldorf
graduate herself!) as the first Dean
of Academic Affairs. With four Wal-
dorf graduates on the team, Sun-
bridge College is taking important
steps toward strengthening the rigor
of its teacher preparation master’s
programs for Waldorf educators. For
my part, by working in Sunbridge’s
Development Department, I am hop-
ing to increase the awareness of and
support for Waldorf education and
its potential to bring new life and re-
newal to education and our culture.
If you want to help too, please spread
the word!
Also, did you know that there are
over 400 teaching positions that need
to be filled each year in the Waldorf
schools in North America alone? If
you know someone who you think
may have the potential to teach or
who wants to be a teacher: tell them
about your education and where they
can explore the vocation of Waldorf
teaching: www.sunbridge.edu
T h r e e f o l d N e ws
Mimi Satriano
I spent over an hour reading the
last Alumni Magazine, catching
up with all of you. It was a moving
experience, a little bit like being
in the Twilight Zone, remembering
most of you as teenagers and abso-
lutely amazed at how you all went on
to such interesting paths.
When many of you were students,
I worked at the school. As far as I
know, I hold the singular distinc-
tion of having worked in all three
sections of Green Meadow. In 1991,
I moved on to work at the Threefold
Educational Foundation, whose mis-
sion is to support and develop edu-
cational work based on the work of
Rudolf Steiner. We try to ensure that
all TEF institutions (Green Meadow,
Sunbridge College, the Eurythmy
School, the Hungry Hollow Co-op)
are in step with requirements im-
posed on us by outside authorities,
while fielding requests and ideas to
make new things happen.
Rafael Manacas, Threefold’s Di-
rector, is working on plans to cel-
ebrate the 75th anniversary of the
first international anthroposophi-
cal conference in America, held in
Spring Valley in 1933. The theme of
the celebration is “Envisioning the
Future” and it will take place here
in late August 2008. At the age of
21, Henry Barnes, a pioneer in this
country’s Waldorf movement, met
anthroposophy and Waldorf educa-
tion at the 1933 conference. A resi-
dent of the Fellowship Community,
he turns 96 this summer and looks
forward to participating in the an-
niversary conference and meeting
today’s young people. We are trying
to create a program of interest to
young people. We would be happy
to hear from you about topics that
would make you want to participate
in such a conference.
While Rafael is doing that, I am
trying to figure out how to renovate
the Auditorium, without ruining the
near perfect acoustics and the cozy
feeling that is so well loved by all
who enter the building. A new roof
was installed this year, as well as
new stage curtains, so that will buy
us time while we try to figure out
how to air-condition the place and
meet accessibility requirements,
among other challenges. Oh yes,
then there’s always the fund-rais-
ing that goes along with all these
Community later
four yearsNews
while activities to assure that life is
worth living, and with an end that is
but a new beginning. Though we did
not begin trying to be unique, many a
friend tells us that, in fact, we are.
Over the years there have been
many challenges to the birthing of
enriching events and new undertak-
ings. These events have nourished
our determination to continue our
striving to bring human care with
gentleness, dignity, and productiv-
ity. We are very grateful to have
been pioneers in this direction,
seeking support for the betterment
of long term care. We are grateful
to have the experience of caring for
single individuals in a community,
while working for humankind in the
process. Pictured left,
We have co-workers, elders and The Threefold
volunteers who are ready to help in Auditorium
ways that they never knew they could
adventures and keeping up with the
new technology. Which reminds me,
soon Threefold will have a nicely de-
– in work areas, on the farm and in
human care. They bring a kindness
of heart with their care. Some of our
signed website as well as signs along
elders who come here to retire can
Hungry Hollow Road so people will
become active and busy within the
be able to find us more easily.
community.
I have spent most of my adult life
Those who become more frail
living and working on Hungry Hollow
and in need of assistance can bring
Road and it has been very gratify-
their lifetime learning to share
ing. Whether at Green Meadow or at
with others. They can bring about
Threefold, there has never been a day
a unique and informal educational
when I didn’t want to go to work. My
circumstance for youngsters in the
tasks have ranged all over the map,
community.
but at the end of each day, they were
in support of an ideal that I value
deeply. How many people have that Martin and Luther: Born on Mar-
satisfaction at the end of every day? I tin Luther King Day, the two new-
wish the same for all of you. est lambs of the Duryea Farm of the
Fellowship Community draw visits
Fe l l o ws h i p to the community from neighbors
Co m m u n i t y N e ws and friends of all ages.
from the Fellowship Community
Newsletter
W hen the Fellowship Community
began its journey over 40 years
ago, we did not realize that we were
paving quite a new road, with care of
the elderly embedded in a commu-
nity of all ages, with enough worth-
Spring 2008 | 
Alumni News
A l u m n i N e ws cess of giving and receiving as natu-
ral and comfortable as possible for
Developments everyone involved, and in erasing
Ivy Greenstein the inequalities—both real and per-
ceived—between giver and receiver.
Alumni Coordinator
I never intended to be a fundraiser:
and faculty volunteers. Chris is also
the school’s database guru extraor-
dinaire and the administrator for
our other fund-raising programs:
SCRIP and online shopping. Both of
these development tools require no
Alumni News
Meadow alumni” is a very easy term
Tomorrow Within Today to toss about—and certainly, you
A Campaign for do share a unique and wonderful
Green Meadow Waldorf School commonality—you are, nonethe-
less, a very heterogeneous group of
Vicki Larson, Director of Development
individuals.  Our alumni class lists

T his past January marked my first I have always seen fundraising as a extra out-of-pocket expenditures for range from young people still in their
full year as a member of Green necessary step in making possible the buyer, yet net wonderful profits GMWS’s alumni have joined with the wider Green Meadow com- teens to fifty-something adults.  Not
Meadow’s Development staff.  Dur- the work that I believe in. So, for me, for GMWS. munity to show their support for Tomorrow Within Today—Green only have you alumni had a range of
ing this year, significant changes oc- the ideal fundraisers are people who Rounding out the Green Meadow Meadow’s capital campaign. The alumni portion of the campaign has educational and social experiences
curred in the Development Office as have professional skills and are to- Development team is our talented been led by Green Meadow alumni David Bosch ’85 and Jennie (Ab- while at Green Meadow—reflec-
a whole. A major change has been tally committed to the projects they and dynamic graphic designer, Jan bott) Abbingsole ’91, and alumni parent chairs Ann Stahl and Richard tive of both the decades in which
saying farewell, at least for now, to are fundraising for, who see rais- Melchior, who, in addition to design- Hansen. The purpose of the capital campaign is to realize the dreams you grew up, as well as the milieu of
Tony Cirone, beloved class teacher ing money as a tool rather than an ing The Bulletin and our school’s
of our community: a beautiful addition to the Arts Building and much-
the school at the time you attended
of the classes of ’95 and ’03 and, since end. The goal is to make our dreams new website, creates posters and
needed gym and high school renovations.
—but you have naturally followed a
1999, Director of the GMWS Devel- real, and money is simply one of the postcards for our events and the lay-
There is much good news to report. As this issue of the Magazine
range of different directions in your
opment program and originator of things we need for that to happen.” out for this Magazine. It would be personal and professional lives since
As you all know, our school has hard to overstate Jan’s contributions goes to press, we have exceeded our original fundraising goal and are then.  My assignment, as your Coor-
the GMWS Alumni program. Tony
had long wanted to exchange the a long and successful history of de- to the success of our department’s approaching $3 million; two alumni-sponsored challenge matches have dinator, is to recognize and meet
grey days of Northeast winters for velopment events: Many of you re- endeavors. As you know from the brought alumni giving to $220,000; alumni parents have given gener- your current interests and needs as
California sunshine and this Janu- member when the Fall Fair was a last issue of the Magazine, Candace ously, contributing $388,000; the school community has enjoyed sev- GMWS alumni.  My interest goes far
ary, he and Gail headed west to San two-day event and how, each spring, Stern, our fearless editor, is now liv- eral campaign benefit events—the Jerrahi Mosque Ottoman Feast, an beyond merely trying to enlist your
Diego, where he is now Director of the school was transformed by the ing in Dallas and Maine, embracing opera performance by two current Green Meadow parents, staff-led financial support on behalf of today’s
Development and head of the Capi- three-day Pottery Show. While the technology as she conceives each fitness classes, and several student-organized events. As we wrap up students.  You should know that the
tal Campaign for the Waldorf school Fall Fair is still going strong, the Pot- issue and works via telephone and the campaign, our goal is 100 percent participation: from alumni, fac- school considers you very much a
there.  We are extremely grateful to tery Show closed its doors after 25 email with us all in the editing and ulty/staff, and parents. vital part of our community, and we
Tony for his many years of service successful years, giving rise, in 1994, production process. value your participation and input
and inspired leadership and wish to the Spring Family Music Festival. As for me, getting to know the in current campus life.  Please, get
Today, our community events are workings of the Green Meadow in touch with me and let me know
him well in his new endeavors. 
We are delighted to introduce run by Christine Delaney, now in Alumni Department has been a F acts & F ig u res if there are any events, activities,
you to Tony’s successor, Vicki Lar- her seventh year as GMWS’s Associ- wonderful experience, and I have or services you would like us to of-
son, an experienced development ate Director of Development. Dur- thoroughly enjoyed the tasks in- Amount raised to date: $2.9M fer—or perhaps you have something
professional who has worked in ing her tenure here, Chris has also volved: coordinating my first Fall
Fundraising Goal: $3M
you’d like to bring back and offer to
the non-profit sector since 2001.  added the late winter/early spring Fair All-Alumni Gathering (you us.   Together, we can carry on the
Vicki comes to us from MADRE, Goods and Services Auction and the can find my 11/05/07 article on this Actual costs: $4M great legacy that Tony has left us!
an international women’s human early fall Jack Onderdonk Memorial topic in The Bulletin archives on (of construction and renovation)
rights organization based in NYC. Golf Outing to our repertoire of an- the GMWS website); working with
If you haven’t yet
Prior to 2001, she managed Laby- nual events; her prodigious organi- Class Giving Agents on the Annual Contributed by...
rinth Books, a scholarly bookstore zational and management skills are Appeal; assisting in the production
current parents: $1.6M participated in the
in Manhattan, and edited Monthly key to drawing people from a wide of the Magazine; planning my first
Review, an international political area to our school and productively Alumni/Varsity Basketball Game alumni: $220,000 capital campaign,
affairs magazine. engaging vast numbers of parent post-game party; sending GMWS-
In terms of her view of develop- style “care packages” to our newly alumni parents: $388,000 now is the time to
ment work, Vicki has this to say:  minted graduates (now college
freshmen). Even updating the GMWS Board: over $700,000 acknowledge the
“I think it’s really important to re-
member that fundraising is always database and gradually recogniz- Faculty/Staff: over $75,000 important role that
about relationships—everyone has ing alumni names—and success-
something to contribute to the pro- fully matching them up with year Gym renovations begin Green Meadow has
cess, including donors, recipients, of graduation!—has been a gratify- Summer 2008
and fundraisers. Money is a loaded ing experience. My responsibilities played in your life.
topic in our society, but I believe here are as varied as the commu- Arts Building
nity I serve.  groundbreaking It’s not too late and
that privilege carries responsibility
One thing I’ve come to learn in in 2009
and wealth is meant to be shared. Vicki Larson, every gift matters!
I’m interested in making the pro- Development Director this department is that while “Green

10 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 11

Alumni News Alumni News

H appenings!
At the game... 2008 Alumni Basketball Introducing Happenings!,
1 Chela Crane Night
‘97 with
daughter, Reported by Stu Kornberg and Ivy
Greenstein
calendar a new section of the Alumni
Magazine with announce-

of events
2-year old ments of recent or upcoming

G
Ananda reen Meadow’s gymnasium be- art shows, performances,
2 Women’s gan to fill slowly the night of publications, and movie and
team: (left January 11, but by game time the April 7-11 musical releases.  Please
to right): “house” was packed. There was a
Helaine Senior Projects contact Ivy Greenstein at
buzz in the air and all in attendance
Schonfeld
knew they were in for a special eve- ... igreenstein@gmws.org if you 1 2 3 4
‘06, Nura-
April 11
nisa Rae
‘05, Jennifer
ning: the Annual Alumni/Varsity
Basketball Game! Rookie Green 1 An Evening in Tuscany
wish to include news items
here or on the alumni website. Music turing bassist Percy Jones
(from Brand X).
and Joerg Siebert “Disjoint-
edness: The Challenge of
Daugherty Meadow players realized very Goods and Services Auction The Chapin Sisters (Abigail Jesse Kotansky ‘06’s Mid- Partnerships in Complex
‘01, Gabri- quickly that this was no ordinary ’98, Lily ’99, and Jessica) Cultural Environments.” Bri-
and Dinner dle Eastern, Balkan jazz en-

Happenings!
elle Stryker ody, Elizabeth K.and Robert
‘04, Chela
match. Although the alumni wom- ... released their first LP album, semble, Which Way East,
T. Trotter, II, eds. Partnering
en, coached by faculty member/ Lake Bottom on Plain Re- played a gig last fall at NYC’s
Crane ‘97,
alumni parent Stephen Kotansky, May 2 cordings, on March 18. The experimental music club, the for Organizational Perfor-
Sylke Jack- mance: Collaboration and
son ‘88 tried their best against their young- Grandparents Day and album title is an ode to their Knitting Factory, in Tribeca. 
family, as Lake Bottom is the Culture in the Global Work-
May Pole Celebration
Film
er opponents, the varsity women, place.  New York: Rowman
3 Coach farm in New Jersey that their
Kotansky directed by alumni parent Skip ... great-grandfather, Kenneth and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Herman, opened up the night’s fes- 2
with alumni
tivities with a 40-28 victory. Then,
May 17 Burke, bought in 1925, and Stefan Schaefer ’89 co- 2008.
women wrote and co-directed Ar-
Art Shows
which the family still owns
the alumni men took the court… GMWS Family Music today. The Chapin Sisters ranged, an award-winning
4 Men’s team
(partial: left twenty plus in number, under the Festival will do a residency of Mon- feature film (www.arranged
to right: able coaching of David Bosch ’85. Headliners include day night shows in March at themovie.com) that opened The fiber art of Orly Cogan
(Coach) The game was great. Although the Tom Chapin. For updates The Echo in LA to celebrate at NYC’s Quad Cinema on ’90 was featured this past
David Bosch Warriors, coached by alumni par- and information, the release, with parties and December 14. winter in “Pricked: Extreme
‘85, Angelos visit www.gmws.org tour dates to follow in April, Embroidery” at NYC’s Mu-
Kontos ‘07,
Andrew
ent Bill Oswald and aided by Micah
Witri ’05 filling in for side-lined ... up and down the East and
West Coasts.  Check their
Publications seum of Arts and Design and
was included in “The Heart
Shurtleff ‘05, senior, Beno Stewart, hung tough, 3 Week of June 2 Goldmacher, Amy ‘92 is a Lonely Hunter,” a group
even Witri’s 23-point performance website for details: www.
Max Oscar thechapinsisters.com “Graduate Socialization in exhibit at 31GRAND on
‘07, Ismar wasn’t enough to guarantee victory. Senior Class Play Anthropology: Developing a Ludlow Street in Manhattan’s
Mahmutovic In the end, it was the Warriors who ... Walker Adams ‘00 has Professional Anthropology Lower East Side.
‘98, Hasan came up short, 48-44. Afterwards, June 14-15 released a CD entitled The Identity.”  Michigan Discus-
Oswald Power Of One under the Zaria Forman ‘01’s chalk
beer and wine flowed and dozens sions in Anthropology, Vol.
‘07, Robbie Graduation Weekend pseudonym JoyEngin (www. pastel drawings of Green-
of sandwiches were consumed, as 18, 2008. 
Rindlaub ... joyengin.com). Available at land are being shown March
‘05, Rafi 40 alumni and faculty partied into Goldmacher, Amy “Lo- 27 - April 26 at the Allen
(cdbaby.com/cd/enginjoy).
Cansino ‘06, the wee hours of the morning at a September 25 Walker has recorded his cated Mobility: Living and Sheppard Gallery, 530 West
Karel Schur- festive post-game party hosted by Jack Onderdonk original compositions with Working in Multiple Places.”  25th Street, New York, NY.
man ‘05, the Alumni Department and Green 4 a full band including the Mobile Work, Mobile Lives: Her Greenland landscape
Memorial Golf Outing Cultural Accounts of Lived explorations figured promi-
Dominik Meadow’s new Athletic Director, horn section from Digable
Landowne Stu Kornberg, and his wife, April. A
... Experiences. Tracy L. Meer- nently in “Zaria Forman and
Planets. Listen at walker-
‘07 grand time was had by all. October 18 adams.com. He is currently warth, Julia C. Gluesing, and Catherine Minery” at the
5 Brendan playing drums with the Brigitte Jordan, eds.  NAPA Mikhail Zakin Gallery of the
Fall Fair & All-Alumni Bulletin 30, 2008. 
Oswald ‘92 Women: Gathering indie pop act St. Vincent Old Church Cultural Center
and referee (ilovestvincent.com), and Miller, Christine Z., Amy in Demarest, NJ, February 8
Warriors | 40
the fusion trio Tunnels fea- Goldmacher, Julia Gluesing, - March 7.
Alumni | 28 For further information
about school events, 1 The Chapin Sisters
Men: contact Chris Delaney in 2 Walker Adams
the Development Office at 3 Jesse Kotansky
Alumni | 48 (845) 356-2514 x 304 4 Stefan Schaefer (left)
Warriors | 44 5, 6, 7 Orly Cogan artwork
5 8, 9 Zaria Forman artwork
5 6 7 8 9

12 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 13

A Call to Action A Call to Action

A Call S
ometimes the call to ac-
tion is one you can an-
swer on the phone. Mine
was ringing fatefully one
self as being associated with Boul- him, I had some friends who were
der Energy Conservation Center, or already doing that kind of thing on
BECC (now acronymically leaner, their own—using an ad-hoc net-
semantically broader, the Center work of contractors to jump on op-

to crisp, sunny, late-November Colo-

rado day. I had just returned from
a far-flung, 3-month, life-changing,
for Resource Conservation, or CRC),
and identified me as a “potential
volunteer,” my mind immediately
portunities to score free flooring,
lumber or windows, and other ma-
terials for building.

Action
“3rd-world,” high-mountain/deep-
jungle/cultural-spiritual adventure
(the first of many). I was sailing un-
der strong spiritual winds, my gaze
had steadied and calmed that year,
went elsewhere. I probably would
have started to multi-task had I
not been curly-cord tethered to the
wall (remember those?). However,
when he described the project they
I had come to Boulder, Colo-
rado after college with my eyes
and climber-hands focused on the
world-famous cliffs of Eldorado
Canyon, mountains of rock and ice

Mick Follari ‘90 my heart and mind were broad and

fierce. But I was also unemployed,
were involved in, I snapped back
to attention. He asked if I wanted
in nearby National Parks, the un-
natural preponderance of slender
and despite my inexpensive, Boul- to help “de-construct” a house that blondes (though I don’t discrimi-
der bohemian-climber lifestyle, was slated for demolition, so that nate, I promise), and thoughtful
worldly (read: financial) pressures the materials could be salvaged, Buddhists. My Ivy League degree
loomed threatening on the horizon. cleaned up and reused. My excite- stayed behind on the wall. I loaded
So when the caller identified him- ment was piqued because, as I told the car with some carpentry tools,
climbing gear, and a garbage bag of
clothes, to go “start a life of adven-
ture” (and it turned out, a life of
ever-changing careers!). I was for-
tunate to fall in with a large, tight
group of climber-friends, who, in this
case more importantly, were simi-
larly environmentally conscious,
specifically when it came to sus- I learned he was an engineer, one and thick carpenter’s pants, that above | A view
tainable building design and con- of the board members of the BECC, winter I set about organizing and of “The Yard” at
ReSource, where
struction. I was quickly introduced and a co-founder of ReSource 2000 cleaning up The Yard, and selling used building
to things like Earthships (www. (now simply ReSource, for obvious material to the public. The concept materials are col-
earthship.net), strawbale homes, reasons; http://www.resourceyard. was simple: we were a 501(c)(3) lected, processed
rammed-earth construction and org), a new non-profit construc- non-profit, which means that dona- as needed, and
resold to custom-
a whole fascinating world of al- tion materials reuse and recycling tions to us were tax-deductible. So ers. Lumber,
ternative building techniques. I program. He also was engaged in we would get our material for free, flooring, doors,
also spent evenings hiking out working out a couple of patents either through drop-offs or through windows, and
to the nearby cliffs and boulders and inventions that would serve the major deconstructions of ill-fated other materi-
als arrive from
with guys like Bob, the passionate growing reuse and deconstruction structures, and then re-sell the “deconstructions”
dreadlocked Scotsman ex-pat mas- industry. We hit it off; imagine a cou- material to cover the costs of the where homes are
ter of adobe and plaster, talking ple of idealistic, mad-scientist, en- program, while diverting quantities dismantled for
intensely about the use of space, gineer-types pulling 2x4s out of the of solid waste from the landfill. Of their materials.
Often there are
the human footprint, shelter, com- walls of this fast-diminishing house, course, the material was sold at a waitlists for ma-
left | Used tires packed with dirt make up the rear, “tromb” wall in an Earthship, which while excitedly talking through significant discount, and many hap-
munity and other factors that enter terials; framing
charges up with sunlight and re-radiates heat into the home. They are packed and
stacked, then plastered with 4 coats of adobe to create a warm, welcoming space. into a re-visioning of the American- the details of a machine to de-nail py homebuilders and homeowners lumber from the
built environment. lumber. By the end of the day, he’d were served. Three months after 50’s is considered
Photograph taken by Joe Callahan, owner/builder of the Earthship where I lived,
furniture-grade
and president of SimpleSolar, a photovoltaic installation company. The boy is Caleb After some discussion of my situa- offered me the job of running The starting, the director quit, leaving to woodworkers
Stonacek, who attended the Shining Mountain Waldorf School here in Boulder, where tion and negotiation, the guy on the Yard, the unprotected, outdoor pile me the sole employee of the grow- now.
I taught science and mathematics.
phone agreed to pay me $9/hour to of material they had been collecting ing operation. With no competi-
above | Joe’s 1,200 sq ft Earthship located at 7,500 ft in the mountains outside Boulder.
help pry apart the home. At the site and selling on alternate Saturdays. tion in my way, I immediately (that
It features a living roof and stone, stucco, and juniper wood from the site, as well as
recycled wood and other materials inside, and no tie to the city “grid.” Power is entirely I found a lone thin figure, a man He also hired me to sketch and same hour, I believe) stepped up to
from photovoltaic cells and wind, heat is from passive solar heating, and “plumbing” in his 40s, tenacious, with thick design the inventions we were dis- run the program. My friends were
includes a composting toilet. glasses. Over the course of the day cussing. Dressed in leather gloves excited also to see that my work

14 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 15

A Call to Action
against a culture of
construction waste,
like their fights in
their own small proj-
ects, was becoming
an institutionalized
reality. Over the first
few years, we grew
in leaps and bounds,
consulted with other
communities, attend-
ed conferences, wrote
above | Self- articles and watched as a whole in-
portrait while dustry and new conception of con-
enjoying the
solitude of the
struction waste grew up nationwide
mountains; solo alongside us.
ice climbing Mt. The ultimate project for me came
Somus while up when I was about to leave Re-
alone in the
remote South
Source in 1998… The opportunity
Island of New arose to join an incredible journey
Zealand. through Africa with National Geo-
right | Solar graphic (see the May 2000 issue).
panels adorn the I had already begun to plan my
roof of a project exit from running the non-profit I’d
in Colorado. With
helped build from desperate infan-
tax incentives,
high energy cy to a stable, successful company.
prices, and grow- Just then, a strange phone call
ing awareness of came in: it was the executor of the
energy conser-
estate of a man who had suddenly
vation, green
energy compa- (inexplicably) died in his sleep.
nies are growing This man had scored the beams
quickly around and decking from a car dealership
the country.
being demolished, and had been
storing them at our local airport,
intending to build himself a han-
gar. Picture this: there were about
a dozen huge glue-lam beams, each
85’ long, 42” high and 9” wide, and
also about a dozen panels of 3”x6”
tongue-in-groove decking spiked to-
gether and intact, each about 12’ by
30’. The local waste hauler wanted
about $10,000 to chainsaw it up and
landfill it. By calling some of those
same friends (one of whom was
about to build a hybrid strawbale,
Earthship recycled timber-frame
home), we put into motion a mas-
sive project to clean, de-nail and
re-mill all this material for sale
on-site at the airport. Our policy
at ReSource had been that people
16 | Alumni Magazine
could exchange sweat-equity for
material, so in April 1998, an army
of volunteers, including homeown-
ers, community service workers
and other non-profiteers collected
to get to the task. We built clever
contraptions where, after disman-
tling the decking, we could pass
the boards through a kind of as-
sembly-line with a metal-detector
suspended over them, with people
marking nails with lumber crayons,
and others removing them. We used
a portable gas-powered band-saw
mill (like the type people drop onto
a remote property in Alaska) to re-
mill the boards to expose the beau-
tiful clean white wood a fraction of
an inch below the surface. We cut
the huge beams down and used a
variety of methods, including sand-
blasting, planing, belt-sanding, or
simply band-sawing off the surface
to expose the clean orange Douglas
Fir wood lying under the paint and
weathered exterior. Some of those
beams we milled up and assembled
to-order into large beam trusses for
a show-home in the Denver Parade
of Homes that year; much of the
material went into the Greenwood
Wildlife Sancutary building (where
many of the volunteers came
from); and we did a spectacular
no-steel Japanese timber-frame job
using those beams on the Earth-
ship/strawbale home at 9,000 feet
elevation above Nederland, CO that
my friend hired me onto after I left
ReSource later that year, before go-
ing to Africa. All in all, that single
project had diverted literally tons
of beautiful warm wood materials
from filling up a hole in the ground;
gave several other non-profits and
homes inexpensive, high-quality
material to build with; saved the
estate at least $10,000 cash; and
gave them a tax write-off of nearly
$50,000.
During several of the following
years, I continued to work on, and
live in, homes built in alternative,
eco-friendly ways. I spent one year
at 7,500 feet in the mountains out-
side Boulder in a home completely
off the grid (no tie to local power,
water or gas). That home was solar-
powered (via photovoltaic panels),
solar water-heated, with a compost-
ing toilet, gray-water planter bed,
built out of truly local material
(rocks, wood and earth from the
site), as well as recycled materials.
While living there, I also worked at
9,000 feet on a large project com-
bining remilled/recycled timbers
(from the project described above),
rammed-earth walls / foundation,
strawbale walls, and other eco-
friendly techniques.
The trend toward green building is
a growing imperative also being met
by a growing number of institutions,
cities, builders and consumers—by
necessity, incentive or policy. Last
summer, based in some measure
on my experiences in green build-
ing, I participated in the writing of
the Climate Protection Manual for
Cities (http://www.climatemanual.
org/Cities), produced by Hunter
Lovins’ Natural Capital Solutions.
This document is a best-practices
manual to help cities that have
committed to reducing their carbon
footprints (despite the federal gov-
ernment’s refusal to sign the Kyoto
treaty). Included are a number of
building and infrastructure-related
suggestions to entice, force or other-
wise coerce the building, rental, and
homeowner communities to par-
ticipate in these carbon-reduction
goals. In the broader sense, energy
efficiency (a no-brainer with oil near
$100/barrel and only anticipated to
go up, and climate change concerns
gaining volume), waste reduction
(construction waste makes up 75%
of all landfill space), using alterna-
tive energy sources, and recycling
and reuse (reducing open-pit min-
ing, forest destruction, and petro-
leum extraction) are all practices
that are gaining hold in the psyche
of the building community.
Now, years and several other
careers later (including being a
A Call to Action
Waldorf teacher), I have remod-
eled and sold off my first home,
and bought another property near
downtown Boulder. It is on a large
lot, with incredible views, neighbor-
hood cachet, and perfect southern
exposure. It has the potential to be
a highly visible showcase of green
building techniques and technolo-
gies (something already being done
around Boulder): energy efficient,
top| Windows
using natural/local materials, clev- waiting for new
er passive solar design, thoughtful homes at the
and creative use of space, light and ReSource sales
yard.
pattern, and, of course, recycled and
reclaimed materials. Here in Boul- bottom | A view
der, the standards for green build- inside Joe
Callahan’s Earth-
ing are high, and have just gotten
ship. Much of
higher, with new tougher efficiency the trim work
and eco-friendly requirements be- (including the
ing placed on all construction. I bench) was
crafted out of
see it as a welcome intellectual standing-dead
challenge for myself, and a future juniper on site
selling point to a cost- and eco- and the ceiling
conscious buyer. In fact, the call from re-milled
used lumber. The
is coming in again for me: to study greenhouse at
architecture, something I hope will the front of the
marry my engineering background house treats
with my creative needs. This time, gray-water (from
shower and sinks)
I suspect I’ll be able to take the call using plants such
free of the curly phone cord! as banana trees.
Spring 2008 | 17
A Call to Action
Evolution
of a Builder
Elliot Berkowitz ’92
I
never intended to be a build-
1 | Rebuilding the er. I graduated from college
façade in 1996, and since I didn’t re-
2 | Front window ally have any plans or know
detail what I wanted to do, I took a job
3 | Porch detail with the carpenter who renovated
4 | House fully my parents’ home. Initially, I was
restored the guy who picked up the trash
and loaded the dumpster
all day, but it wasn’t long
before I got to participate in
some actual carpentry. I fell
in love with the craft—the
precision and creativity of
it, the almost immediate
gratification of seeing my
handiwork at the end of
each day. Shortly afterward
I bought a house of my own.
It wasn’t much of a house.
In fact, it was a gutted, run-
down shell of a place, which
was the only reason I was
able to afford it. It’s one of
2
the old railroad homes in
South Nyack that the rail-
road company built for its
managers. It was built in
1872, and when I bought
it, it looked like no one had
done anything to it in the
intervening 120 years.
Meanwhile, I got another
job, this one with a general
contractor who specialized
in historic restoration. I
was literally spellbound by
his ability to reform bat-
tered old homes into lit-
eral masterpieces. He had
enormous amounts to teach
me, and I was a most will-
ing student. Every morning
3 I was eager to get to work
18 | Alumni Magazine
so that I could hone my craft, learn
something new. As historic restora-
tion is a field of literally limitless
possibilities, the learning has never
stopped.
In 2001, I decided to start my own
company, Riverside Builders. With
all the renovation going on in our
corner of the world, I knew there
would be no shortage of work. And
by then I had mastered enough of
my craft to be confident in my abil-
ity. My first job was the Estate House
in Sneden’s Landing. The entire
time I worked on that house, there
wasn’t one moment when I wasn’t
nervous about doing it right. Yet I
was confident in what I’d learned
about historic restoration and I had,
and still have, such a passion for the
craft that I knew I wasn’t going to be
satisfied until that house was exactly
the way I, and its owner, wanted it.
Since then, I have established a
successful business, one in which I
now do as many modern homes as I
do historic ones. I work almost ex-
clusively in Manhattan and one of
the additional benefits about this
job is the people it has allowed me to
work with. For instance, I’ve worked
with architect Charles Rose, a Gar-
den City Waldorf School graduate. I
have worked on the homes of violin-
ist Joshua Bell, poet Mark Strand,
and the rapper Kanye West. I no lon-
ger do much of the actual building,
and that’s okay. As much as I once
loved building, I now love working
with clients to form a concept of
what they want their house to be,
and then orchestrating the process
to achieve that. Oh yeah, and speak-
ing of houses . . .
I didn’t immediately renovate
my shell in South Nyack. I was too
busy working on other houses. Not
to mention that my house was filled
with fellow Green Meadow alums
looking for cheap rent. At one time
I had an alum in every room! But af-
ter a time, I finally decided to make
1
it the house I wanted it to be. Part
of my business required me to set up
a workshop where I could mill tradi-
tional moldings, cabinets, windows
and doors that are no longer avail-
able. Thus, for the woodwork in my
house, I was able to replicate mold-
ings and cabinets that were histori-
cally accurate. In addition, I built
a Rumford fireplace and fabricated
all new doors and double-hung win-
dows. When I bought the house, the
outside was covered in fake brick sid-
ing; I stripped that off and restored
all the original siding and detail. For
paint, I consulted with historic ar-
chitect Jeffrey Hall to reproduce the
original colors. From the outset, I’d
planned to renovate the house so I
could sell it. Hokey as it sounds, I de-
veloped a real bond with the house
in the process of making it into the
home I wanted it to be. So it’s where
I’m living now and where I intend to
live for a long time to come.
4 Waldorf side, I began studying in-
From Anthro to Enviro: The Story of
Eco Handyman Nate Burger ‘94
A
fter graduating from GMWS
in 1994, I went straight to
business school. When I
received my degree from
Babson, just outside Boston, I was
intent on someday starting my own
company. Ever since the time when I
mowed neighbors’ lawns and painted
their houses to pay my way through
college, I thought running my own
ship—setting my own goals and
making my own hours—was the way
to go. One of my idols was Sir Rich-
ard Branson, the business mogul and
founder of the Virgin companies. As
far as I know, he didn’t cut lawns,
but he said something that has stuck
with me: “I can have an idea in the
bath in the morning and have it up
and running by tea time.”
Well, I was never much of a tea
drinker and nothing close to a
Knight of the British Empire, like
Sir Richard. But during my first
stint in the work world at Kaplan
in New York City, I started learning
fast. What did I learn? For start-
ers, that selling test-prep programs
to students wasn’t my calling. So I
jumped from the East to Seattle for
a job at Amazon.com. What were
my learnings there? That answer-
ing customer inquiries didn’t do it
for me either. And neither did get-
ting laid off, which is why I landed
another job about 6 weeks before
the layoffs and hopped back East,
where I dabbled at a tech company
and an advertising agency (“Would
you like fries with your multi-media
advertising campaign?”). Clearly,
things weren’t clicking yet.
In search of my more creative,
dustrial design at Mass Art. While
the program was fun and stimulat-
ing, I realized that if I were lucky,
and my “form-drawing” paid off, I
would end up about three rungs
down the corporate ladder stuck in
a cubicle just like Dilbert, design-
ing $12 toasters for manufacture in
China. I thought, “This is what I was
looking forward to?”
Suddenly, none of this seemed
important anymore when, out of
the blue, my mother died from an
asthma attack. I was devastated.
Who knew that this could happen to
someone who was so healthy and ac-
tive, who seemed to have her whole
life ahead of her—someone I loved
so dearly? I sought comfort in work-
ing as the director of marketing for
a hipster clothing company called
Karma Loop. I thought this would
give me the stability and meaning I
had been looking for. Yes, now I had
a livable salary, but stability was the
last thing I should have been looking
for at that company. After just three
months busting my butt to single-
handedly get a marketing program
off the ground, I was laid off. (I guess
I’ll just chock it up to bad karma—
how “anthro!”)
My karma was telling me, “It’s time
to get out of the corporate world.”
Was I going to take up Eurythmy?
Hmm. Actually, it was time to start
my own company, like Sir Richard.
Maybe my idea wasn’t going to be up
and running immediately after tea
time, but I was going to make it hap-
pen somehow, somewhere.
Now, up to this point, when it came
to starting a company, I’d been full
of ideas but short on clarity. What
A Call to Action
was going to be the mission of my
company? I knew that the way my
brothers Peter, Tim, and I could best
honor our mother was by upholding
the values that she—not to mention
our GMWS Waldorf education— in-
stilled in us.
When I was pondering my first
career move during college, Mom
would always say, “You should find
a way of working in solar or wind
energy,” to which I would always
laugh and say, “Yeah, right!” They
say mother knows best and, lo and
behold, now I had clarity. Now I
had my idea. I knew sustainability
would have to be the centerpiece of
my company.
The seed of a
business
A fter several years jumping from
one company to the next, I be-
gan to look back at my youthful
painting and maintenance pursuits
and see a handyman business as be-
ing a great way to help people save
time maintaining and remodeling
their homes. Where would my niche
be? I wasn’t sure yet, but it began
with the following theory: it’s easy
to find a good general contractor if
you have the money to get a big job
done, but hard if you need a smaller
project completed. While there are
numerous general contractors who
would be happy to build you a new
green dream-home, very few good
contractors are willing to take on
the smaller projects, from to-do
lists around the house, to bathroom
and kitchen updates and energy ef-
ficiency upgrades, and with a knowl-
edge of green building.
Spring 2008 | 19
A Call to Action
Above | Man I wanted to combine this smaller
about town: job niche with an understanding
Nate Burger, Eco
of how the business affects the
Handyman
environment—to take a green
building approach—by combining
environmentally sound materials,
techniques, and building science
to make sure each job improves
the home in a way that’s minimally
harmful to nature rather than sim-
ply maintaining the home in the
cheapest manner possible.
A small-job green building busi-
ness was my niche, but what was
my market? I was sure that any
somewhat liberal town in America
would love this service. So, af-
ter buying a flight to Boulder and
checking the GMWS website to
find out that Mick Follari ‘90 lived
out there, I ended up crashing on
his couch for a week while check-
ing out the scene (hiking, cycling,
mountaineering, skiing… oh yeah,
and seeing what handyman busi-
nesses were out there already). I
picked up the phone and called all
the handyman businesses I could
find. Masquerading as a prospec-
tive customer, I asked what they
below | Eco
charged, what they did, and what
Handyman
catches a they knew about green building.
fat trout They would say “What building?”
(This was back in 2005, and I am
sure they have heard of it now, as
they see my signs around town.) I
had found my market.
Introducing Eco
Handyman
G reen building is about building
energy efficiency, comfort, du-
rability, and sustainability into proj-
20 | Alumni Magazine
ects whenever possible. But most
handymen willing to take on smaller
projects are quite often unreliable
and not experts in all the areas of
home maintenance. Eco Handyman
has a team of handymen with specific
areas of expertise, so we can provide
quality work, whether we’re design-
ing built-in bookshelves, laying tile,
or doing plumbing repairs. We are
happy to fix a leaky faucet, adjust a
door that doesn’t close properly, or
totally remodel a 1970s bathroom,
and replace it with a sleek, resource-
efficient, modern masterpiece.
The process starts when a client
calls. We inquire about their goals
for their home. Some people just
want us to take care of their to-do
list, and others have more specific
needs, such as a kitchen remodel
or finishing a basement. They may
even have a family member with
chemical sensitivities to many tradi-
tional building products. Other cli-
ents call wanting to know how they
can reduce their “carbon footprint”
through a more efficient home.
What makes it “Eco”?
T he eco part comes in when you
use healthier adhesives, paint,
and materials, efficient Energy Star
appliances, low-flow and dual-flush
toilets, and low-flow shower heads
that still give you a great shower. We
also provide air sealing and insulat-
ing, as well as energy-efficient win-
dows to drastically reduce the heat-
ing and cooling needs of homes.
When we switch out an old light
fixture, we tell clients who don’t
already know about compact fluo-
rescent bulbs about how much
more energy efficient they are. We
try to purchase products that come
from a closer source. One example
in Colorado is using travertine tile
from Mexico for a shower enclosure
rather than marble from Italy; since
Mexico is closer to Colorado than is
Italy, this reduces fuel consumption
and the so-called carbon footprint.
In general, we don’t push our phi-
losophy on clients, but we do make
them aware of their options, and al-
low them to make sensible decisions
based on their own values. Some-
times green options are more expen-
sive—many times they are not. In
addition to the work we do, we buy
wind credits to offset our office and
vehicle energy consumption. While
this does not change the fact that
we are burning fossil fuels, it does
help to get more renewable energy
on-line more quickly, and is a step in
the right direction.
At Eco Handyman, we try to be
as green as possible, but we know
there’s much to be done to optimize
our sustainability. Our clients appre-
ciate that we inform them of the lat-
est building options. Of course, the
fact that we pick up the phone right
away, answer questions promptly,
and arrive on time doesn’t hurt, ei-
ther. Some clients thank us profusely
when we call them back immediately,
as though they were not expecting a
return call at all. In fact, sometimes
I think good customer service gets us
more business than the knowledge of
green building.
Green tea
T
oday, just like Sir Richard, I’m
running my own business, even
though it may not involve an airline,
record label or cola brand, and I
still don’t drink tea. His inspiration
to me was that anyone can have an
idea and get it “up and running” as
long as they put in the work. The bot-
tom line in this business is that I’m
now profitable, I don’t sit in a box,
and I’m a couple hours away from
the greatest skiing in the world. It
makes me happy to know I’m help-
ing to bring the Boulder community
one step forward towards a greener
future. Let’s just say, at the risk of
mixing metaphors, if I drank tea, it
would be green tea. After all, isn’t
being green what it’s all about for a
GMWS graduate?
Small Hands
Farm
Julia K. Altes ’97
L
ong before we met, my now-
husband, Tristan, and I each
had our own intentions of liv-
ing sustainably. When we were teen-
agers, our respective ideas about
homesteading were grand and vague.
Now, as we clear and manage, design
and build, we find that, in practice,
living near the land means starting
small and thinking specifically.
In the fall of 2005, Tristan pur-
chased 260 acres in Halifax, Vermont,
and immediately began planting
seedlings: apple, chestnut, quince,
lilac, blueberry, cedar, cypress, ash
and oak, as well as cold-hardy persim-
mon, pecan, grape, and Asian pear.
At the time, I didn’t grasp Tristan’s
sense of urgency. But I have since
come to understand that, on a farm,
time is arguably the most precious
resource of all. It will take years for
these plants to mature —from five to
one hundred, or more.
And time is not all. Energy is in-
valuable…In my years at Green
Meadow, I knew the joy of growing up
in community. As it turns out, there
are practical reasons for sharing the
labors and harvests of life with other
people. Tristan and I find that we
need the support of many small hands
to accomplish our many large goals.
In our first three years of owner-
ship, we repaired logging roads,
carved out a driveway, demolished
the old hunting cabin, cleared a
house site, perked for a septic, con-
structed a platform and erected a
yurt, built a shed and a new cabin.
We have been blessed with lots of
help. We have named our acreage
Small Hands Farm.
Before we came to Small Hands
Farm, a neighboring family owned it,
having bought the parcel to protect
it from development. Previously, a
logging company, using dubious for-
estry practices, stripped the prop-
erty of 90 percent of its marketable
lumber. This was forest that had
sprung up after the decline of sheep
farming in Vermont in the 1800s.
The rings on one white pine stump
we found revealed 125 years of life
before it was felled.
Our first order of business was to
clean up the mess the logging com-
pany left behind—small trees scat-
tered like pick-up sticks, corduroy
roads and compacted ruts that, if ig-
nored, would lead to further erosion.
We spent the first year clearing,
burning, moving logs around. When
A Call to Action
we consulted a professional forester, overleaf (page 22)
he told us that the entity most capa- 1 | Demolishing
ble of restoring the forest is the for- the old hunting
est itself. What we do to aid in that camp
process is in collaboration with time,
with the trees, with the soil.
2 | Erecting the
walls of our new
We are in love with this place. Two
year-round brooks course through
cabin
3 | The cabin,
sheathed, last
the woods, and a trout-inhabited
summer
river runs across the road. There are
4 | The cabin in
forested hillsides containing birch, winter; exterior
beech, cherry, sugar maple (great finished, but for
siding
sugarbush stands capable of maple
syrup production), blackberry bush- 5 | One of many
es and conifers. We are wealthy in “burn parties”
field stone – there are stone walls 6 | Julia & Tristan
everywhere, edging once-and-future Korthals Altes
pastures. There’s a lifetime supply
of heating fuel (wood for the wood-
stove), and salvageable felled trees
we mill for lumber. We enjoy close
views of the surrounding hills and,
from up along the ridge, a deep vista
taking in the Green Mountains.
We currently live in the vivacious
southern Vermont town of Brattle-
boro (population 12,000), 12 miles
east of Halifax. Tristan has a full-
time job as managing editor of Envi-
ronmental Building News, a national
(left) Cleaning
up the logging:
clearing for our
wedding and
house site
Spring 2008 | 21
A Call to Action
5
1
2
trade publication. I coordinate a
middle-school enrichment program
and teach music. A plethora of per-
sonal and household endeavors fill
our days.
We used to talk giddily about our
vision: Raising chickens, goats, and
sheep; building barns, workshops,
dwellings, a music studio, a chapel;
creating an orchard, vegetable and
flower gardens, hiking trails, an ed-
ucational center and an intentional
neighborhood. Then we began to
build. And suddenly our vision nar-
rowed to 8x8 timbers and structural
engineering. There are hundreds of
choices to be made about building
materials and process. We thor-
oughly research and consider each
one, and the result is a concert of
compromises and innovations.
3
Last summer, with the help of our
community of friends, family and
neighbors, we built a cabin on the
old farmhouse foundation. We also
4
cleared and landscaped a separate
site where we hope to build a big-
ger house, and we got married there
in August, celebrating on the hot-
test day of the year. The event was
complete with a dramatic thunder-
storm, and fireworks.
22 | Alumni Magazine
This summer we plan to move
into our cabin, and to begin build-
ing our bigger house—on a dry-laid
stone foundation, with clay-plas-
ter walls and slate roofing. Recent
developments in our vision include
adding solar power, and founding
a Waldorf-inspired, outdoor-educa-
tion elementary school. Practically
speaking, we are focused on interior
finish carpentry and plowing snow.
We hope that the practical and the
visionary will meet—perhaps five to
one hundred years down the road. If
and when that happens, it will be in
no small part due to the many good
people who lent us a hand.
6 architecture firms, and was fluent in
List of Four
A Kloppenburg ’92
I 1. Creativity
decided to study architecture
in an afternoon. I sat down with
a list of four requirements that
I felt best summarized what I love,
what I am good at, and what my val-
ues are. Architecture bubbled to the
top as the only career that would
meet all four requirements – with a
few modifications to better suit my
ethic and philosophy.
I did not fully understand what an
exciting, challenging, and reward-
ing adventure I was starting. In true
Sherab fashion, I geared up, dove in,
and buckled down. The next natural
step would be to attend graduate
school and earn a Master’s of Archi-
tecture which would take 3.5 years.
Instead, I decided to quickly get in-
formed by deferring graduate school
to live in South America for the next
two years. My training there con-
sisted of building a Permaculture
garden and house in the lush valleys
of Chile between mountain guid-
ing expeditions on big peaks in the
Andes. As it turns out, this was the
best preparation I could have had
to be the designer and architect I
wanted to be. When I moved back
to the USA, I was ready to learn; to
work in poorly lit basements of large
Spanish, making me a popular mem-
ber of any construction team.
I received my graduate degree
from Colorado University, School of
Planning and Architecture in 2005.
As architects go, I am in the begin-
ning of my career. Besides the years
it will take to understand the depth
and breadth of the architecture
field, I will also have to complete
two more years of apprenticeship
and then pass nine licensing exams
required to attain my architectural
A Call to Action
Sherab
2. Working with people
3. Building with my hands
4. Doing good for the planet and all its inhabitants
license in Colorado. Only then will I
be considered an Architect (with a
capital ’A’).
In the meantime I am learning
from as many professional craft mas-
ters as I can. This is a time of dis-
covery. I am clarifying what type of
architect I want to be and how my
life as a creative person will be, both
on a personal level and as an emis-
sary for positive change in the green
design culture.
I am fascinated by the puzzle of
design: it is a journey which ends
– or starts – by turning an idea into
sculpture that is used, transformed,
and loved by its users, hopefully for
many lifetimes. The longevity of
good design is a thing of wonder and
will outlive the designer many times what we are doing. Sometimes I feel Sherab
over. In my own work I have had the righteous, but mostly - especially Klopppenburg
honor of restoring older buildings when I am laying out a foundation
back to a useful, if not beautiful, in sub zero weather, wearing six lay-
and even longer lasting existence as ers of dirty work clothes in a muddy
members of my community. dirt pit - I feel like we are building a
Life in the Colorado Mountains,
working as a designer and builder,
is full of beauty, creativity, and
strong foundation from which people
with great creative minds and strong
hearts will reach up into a clean blue
compromise. The quickly growing sky and make something better.
Green Architecture field is a good
place for adventure-loving, creative I am fascinated by the puzzle of design:
people like me. There is a youthful it is a journey which ends – or starts – by
spirit amongst our clients, fellow turning an idea into sculpture that is used,
designers, and building profession-
als. We are all master puzzle solv- transformed, and loved by its users, hope-
ers, fascinated and emphatic about fully for many lifetimes.
Spring 2008 | 23
A Call to Action A Call to Action

Home in the
are you headed?” I’d say, “Canada” hiker water filter that provided safe
and keep walking with a smirk on water. This meant that my full pack
AT my face leaving them to wonder
whether I was joking or just crazy.
was between 30-40 pounds when
heading back into the woods.
Thomas
Wilderness
My gear consisted of: sleeping Other than huckleberries by the
bag, small tent, backpack, small pot, handful in late summer, I procured
McArdle ’91 canister of butane fuel with attach-
able stove, knife, plastic spoon, wa-
all my food from town re-supply
points. Every 3-8 days, the trail would
ter filter, small camera, cell phone, cross a road that I could take into a

T
1 he word “home” conjures
up certain images of safety,
comfort, and warmth. For five
months in 2002, my home was the
2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail. Wher-
ever I stopped walking for the day,
as the trail wound through Califor-
nia, Oregon, and Washington, was
my home.
When you have to carry the com-
forts of home on your back, the
concept of comfort takes on new
meaning. What’s comfortable is to
have the lightest pack possible, and
hope you have everything you need
when you stop walking. The irony
on the trail was that you could tell
how far someone was hiking by how
little they had. Those that were hik-
ing the entire trail had tiny packs.
The instant giveaway of a week-
ender was the extra pair of shoes
dangling from the back of a 60-70
pound pack. People would stare at
my small backpack and say, “Where
2 September 2005.
journal and pen, map, compass,
sunscreen, toothbrush and paste,
sunglasses, light foam bed pad, and
flashlight. My clothes: one pair of
socks, one pair rain pants, rain jack-
et, hat, polypropylene shirt, goose
down vest, shorts, T-shirt, gloves,
and one pair trail running shoes. If
it was cold or rainy, I was wearing
every piece of clothing I had. All my
clothes were synthetic fabrics de-
signed to wick away moisture and
keep you warm, even when wet. My
clothes and gear weighed about 20
pounds.
Depending on when I would be
re-supplying for food (every 75-150
miles or every 3-8 days), I had 5-15
pounds of food on my back. My wa-
ter weight depended on how soon I
would reach the next water source.
In the desert, this might mean car-
rying ten pounds of water. In snow-
melt mountainscape, it could mean
carrying no water at all. I brought a
small town with a post office that
held my food package for me until
I arrived. Even though I was scruffy
and smelly, strangers would still re-
spond to my outstretched thumb and
give me a lift into town. Drivers were
always keenly interested in hearing
about my trek, as they politely rolled
down their window for fresh air.
My food consisted of a freeze-dried
dinner and assorted snacks for all
other meals. After chomping down
25 pounds of dried fruit, sampling
every form of meat and fish man has
seen fit to jerk, and eating bushels
of every edible nut, I finally accepted
that the best source of food to sup-
plement the 4,000-5,000 daily calo-
ries I strived for was junk food. It
turns out that “flaming hot crunchy
chee-tos” can be a delectable sea-
soning for your hundredth serving
of tunafish. A king-size Snickers
bar contains 510 calories, possibly
the highest density of calories per
square inch outside of a tub of lard.
When in town, my routine was the
same: Eat, shower, eat, do laundry,
then eat some more. After a day of
rest on a soft bed in a motel, the
same question would arise: Do I re-
ally want to live in the woods again?
But I would go, and an hour into it
my body would re-adjust and my
mind would re-engage into a serene
truth: I was having the time of my
life! I was traveling through a beau-
tiful landscape reserved for, and
only seen by, those who could walk
there. The sun was my alarm clock,
the moon my lantern, and creatures
large and small my soundtrack. The
fact that I could not see a man-made
3
5
4 6
light anywhere on the horizon when Mountain goats, foxes, and coyote 1 | Map of the
I went to bed gave me an odd feeling were among other furry encounters. Pacific Crest Trail,
Source: Pacific
of comfort. I was back in the wilder- Most of the trip is a blur of seem- Crest Trail
ness and I wouldn’t trade it for a ho- ingly every different size, shape, and Association.
tel room if I could. I recalled fondly color of rock that exists on earth, and 2 | Valley hollowed
that town was what made me feel enough different versions of the ce- out by glaciers,
isolated, and I was glad to be back lestial rooftop to last a lifetime. Northern
“home.” Did I learn anything? Have any Washington State,
Of course, I was not really alone. epiphanies? Well, I can’t explain why
In southern California, lizards and I wanted to do it in the first place, 3 | Yosemite
National Park, CA,
flowering cacti accompanied me ev- nor why I kept walking month after July 2005.
erywhere. Fat rattlesnakes sunned month. I do know this: I was never
4 | Trail enters the
themselves on the trail like they homesick, and even at the coldest, Cascade Mountain
owned it. A dozen bear encounters wettest, most lost moments I never Range north of
in the mountains fortunately played regretted placing myself at earth’s Yosemite, July
out as though the bear thought I was mercy with so little to protect me. I 2005.
some freak of nature not worthy of also know that if current realities of 5 | Marmot in the
investigation. I encountered so many life permitted it, I would do it all over High Sierra Nevada
Mountain Range,
elk in Washington in September that, again. Trust me when I say that I en- CA, June 2005.
were it not for the haunting sound of joy the creature comforts of home 6 | Thomas
their bugling at dusk, I might have as much as anyone else. And that McArdle on the
found them commonplace. Some- hiking the PCT with 20 pounds of trail in Southern
how the many hunters in camouflage earthly possessions as my home was California, May
2005.
and face paint I met near trailheads the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.
found these grand beasts elusive. Perhaps that’s epiphany enough.

 
24 | Alumni Magazine Spring 2008 | 25
teacherfeatureteacher
teacher
feature
Nyquan’s
Books
Each September, when the High School gathers in
its new configuration of students and faculty, there
are several familiar rites of passage to mark the occa-
sion: the arrival of a new class of ninth graders fresh
from the Lower School, hilarious faculty skits, and
an opening address given by a member of the high
school faculty. This year, Deborah Schaeffer ‘01 (who
is standing in for James Henderson, who is on sab-
batical), was invited to speak. This is her address.
S
Deborah everal years ago, I was sitting
Schaeffer and in your seats, and I can tell
Nyquan English
you that I would never have
imagined that I would ever find
myself standing here. But life often
takes you to the most unexpected
places, and those are sometimes
the best places.
I want to start by giving you a
brief biography. After graduating
from GMWS, I went to Bowdoin Col-
lege, where I majored in Biology and
26 | Alumni Magazine
by Deborah
Schaeffer
Class of 2001
Environmental Studies. After gradu-
ating, I moved to New York City,
where I spent two years working
in inner-city public schools. Then,
by the grace of Mr. Henderson and
the GMWS faculty, I was offered the
chance to teach biology here for a
year, and I very gladly accepted.
What I want to do now is tell you
about my experience working in in-
ner-city neighborhoods. The story
actually begins back in tenth grade,
when I was doing my community
service. I had chosen to work at
a day care center because I loved
children. We would pile into the
Green Meadow van, and Mr. Crane
would drive us. Back then, all I
knew was that this day care cen-
ter was located in a neighborhood
which some people deemed “bad.”
At that time I had no understand-
ing of poverty or segregation.
I distinctly remember my first day
at the day care center. Four or five
children immediately began piling
on my lap, hugging me, and holding
my hands. This was all very nice,
but I found it strange that these
children became attached to me so
quickly. I was struck by a sense that
these children had needs that were
not being met. The sense that these
children needed me stayed with me
for some time, so that several years
later, as I was finishing my fresh-
man year in college and looking for
a summer job, the idea crossed my
mind to look for work at that day
care center. So I went there and ap-
plied for a job, and to my surprise,
was put in charge of the 5- and 6-
year-old classroom for the summer.
That summer had a profound im-
pact on me. It was the time when
I became awakened to the realities
of poverty, segregation, and their
effect on children.
All the children at the day care
center were African-American or
Hispanic. Most came from single-
parent homes, some were home-
less, and most had some kind of
emotional, academic, or behavioral
issues. As I struggled over the sum-
mer to maintain structure and or-
der with these rambunctious, rowdy
children, something changed in me.
First of all, I found a strength that
I never knew I had. Secondly, I dis-
covered a deep sense of caring for
these children, so that when the
summer came to a close and it was
time to return to college, I found it
difficult to leave. I felt that while
I had bonded with those children
and been a positive person in their
lives for a short period, this wasn’t
going to make any lasting impact
on them. However, that experience
certainly had made a lasting impact
on me. I starting seeing pockets of
segregation and poverty wherever
I went, and felt driven to return to
those neighborhoods. And so, when
I graduated from college, I found
jobs where I could work in inner-
city public schools and after-school
programs.
What I want to do now is to de-
scribe to you one of the communi-
ties that I worked in. This com-
munity is located in Queens, and
it includes the largest public hous-
ing development in New York City,
called Queensbridge. For those who
don’t know, public housing is hous-
ing owned by the city, where resi-
dents normally pay whatever rent
they can afford, which for many is
nothing. Queensbridge houses more
than 7,000 residents in six-story,
brown, box-like buildings. There
are six buildings on each block, and
six blocks altogether. All the blocks
look almost identical to an outsid-
er. Besides a few small stores and a
little community center, there’s not
much there for the residents. The
area is almost entirely industrial.
Across the street from the develop-
ment is a park overlooking the East
River. In the park is a playground,
and right next to the playground
rises up an enormous grey, steel
fortress. This is the Keyspan power
plant. Out of the plant rise three
enormous red and white-striped
smoke stacks, which tower over the
entire neighborhood.
As I’m describing this neighbor-
hood, I’m sure that the contrasts be-
tween Queensbridge and this com-
munity here are obvious to you. I
was thinking about it, though, and I
realized that there are some signifi-
cant similarities. Here, most of us
experience a sense of closeness with
each other, and of being protected
from the outside world. In Queens-
bridge, there is also this sense of be-
ing in a safe “bubble” where everyone
knows each other and everything is
familiar. Part of what I love about
Queensbridge is that, like here, it
feels like a real community, where
I can walk down the street and run
into people I know.
Yet there are, of course, some
important differences between
Queensbridge and the Green Mead-
ow community. One is in the rela-
tionship between people and na-
ture. Here, we look out the window,
and are surrounded by trees, grass,
and flowers. We feel a real connec-
tion to nature. In Queensbridge,
there is no connection to nature
because children grow up com-
pletely removed from anything nat-
ural. They never play in the woods
or grass. Even the playgrounds at
school are built on concrete or as-
phalt. As a result of this and other
environmental influences, many
children develop severe allergies so
that they can’t even stand to be in
nature at all.
Another key difference is in the
school environment. Green Meadow
was born out of a philosophy of love
for the developing human being,
and this love is what motivates the
teachers. In the public schools that
children from Queensbridge attend,
the focus is on one thing: passing the
state tests, which are very difficult
for most of the students. So, whereas
here, typical questions that you ask
each other might be, “where are you
going on exchange?” or “what are
you doing for your senior project?,”
typical questions that young people
in Queensbridge ask each other are
“did you pass the reading test?” or
“are you going to get left back?” And
many do get left back and have to
repeat at least one grade, which is
always a source of shame and dis-
couragement.
In Waldorf education, we often
talk in terms of forms and ges-
tures. I was thinking about it, and
it occurred to me that the gesture
for students going through Green
Meadow is an inverted triangle. As
students go through this education,
they gain a fuller understanding of
themselves and world around them,
so that more and more possibilities
open up over for who they can be
and what they can do in the world.
This certainly was my experience:
I came here in ninth grade, and as
I went through the high school, I
experienced this broadening of the
possibilities of who I could become
in this life. Unfortunately, I feel
that young people in Queensbridge
often experience the opposite ges-
ture. As young children, they start
open-minded and yearning to learn
new things. But over time, their
possibilities become more and
more narrow, as they get locked
into a cycle of failure in school, and
lose their open-mindedness as they
conform to pop-culture and street
culture. For the girls, this process
often ends in early pregnancy, and
for the boys, in street violence or
incarceration.
I spent a year working in a 5th
grade classroom with children
from the Queensbridge neighbor-
hood, and I saw this happening,
and wanted to do something about
it. As the year was drawing to a
close, I realized that I was about
to repeat my experience in Spring
Valley. I had bonded with the kids
and been a positive person in their
lives during that year, but then I
would leave and have no lasting im-
pact on them. Then I had an idea:
what if I could take a few students
and really get involved in their
lives; take them out of Queens-
bridge and expose them to all the
great things my parents had ex-
posed me to as a child—museums,
performances, culture, etc? Maybe
this would open up more possibili-
ties for them. There was one child
in particular that I wished to get
involved. His name was Nyquan,
and I took notice of him right away
because he was always asking lots
of questions (many of which had
nothing to do with the lesson) and
he always seemed bored. I would
look over and see Nyquan fidgeting
at his desk, so I would go ask him,
“What are you doing? Why aren’t
you doing your work?” He would
respond, “Oh, I finished that a long
time ago.” I started asking him
about his interests, and discovered
that he wanted to be an “Egyptolo-
Spring 2008 | 27
teacherfeat
teacher
feature
gist and an archeologist,” and that
he was interested in Greek mythol-
ogy. So I started bringing in books
that I thought would interest him,
which he genuinely seemed to ap-
preciate. But I felt that this wasn’t
making a real difference for him.
He was still bored in school, and I
wished that I could do something
more. The problem was that I didn’t
see a way forward. I had always
gotten involved in projects and
organizations, but I never started
something myself. I didn’t see any
way that I could change anything
for the Queensbridge kids, and so
I gave up on the idea.
Finally, the last day of school
rolled around. I had said goodbye
to all the kids, and was just about
to leave, when I bumped into Ny-
quan and his mother. I introduced
myself, and Nyquan’s mother said,
“So you’re Ms. S. You’re the one
who’s been sending books home
for Nyquan.” (Uh-oh, I thought.)
“Ms. S.,” she continued, “Nyquan
talks about you all the time. I re-
ally appreciate you giving him
those books. He really needs that.”
I decided to take advantage of this
opportunity. “I know Nyquan’s in-
terested in ancient Egypt,” I said.
“Could I take him to a museum
sometime to look at the Egypt ex-
hibits?” Nyquan’s mother said that
would be fine. We exchanged infor-
mation, and I walked away with this
amazing feeling that fate had given
me the chance to follow through
on my idea. But then it dawned on
me that it wasn’t fate. That small
action of giving Nyquan the books
had made more of an impact than
I had thought, and had put some-
thing in motion.
From that point on, I was able
to assemble a small group of chil-
dren who I took out on various
28 | Alumni Magazine
educational outings in the city. We
went to museums, parks, gardens,
and had a wonderful time. No one
could understand why I would
want to spend my weekends hang-
ing out with these kids, but I felt
great, because I had finally found a
way to make a lasting impact on a
group of children and stay involved
in their lives. Now, it’s a funny
thing, but if you’re like me, and
more on the passive side, then you
might find that once you take ac-
tion, it becomes easier and easier
to do so. Later on, when I heard
that Nyquan was having trouble at
school, I decided to bring him and
his mother to Green Meadow to vis-
it. As it turned out, they loved the
school, and Nyquan was enrolled. I
arranged to have him stay with me
during the week so that he could
attend the school. So he’s starting
7th grade here tomorrow. He’s very
excited to be here, and I’m very
happy that he’s going to experi-
ence the inverted triangle gesture
for himself. I think that it will have
a profound impact on his life.
So, that’s the story of how what
started with 10th grade community
service ended with me being able
to make a real, significant change
in one child’s life. Now what do I
want you to take from this? Well,
going into the year, I hope that you
I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything I will not
refuse to do the something
I can do.
will move more in the direction of
wakefulness and action in your own
lives. My wish is that each time you
speak the Morning Verse, you will
be reminded to actually “look into
the world,” and to really see what’s
going on around you, with your fel-
low students, in this community,
in this country, and in the whole
world. If you do so, I suspect that
you will feel called to act to change
something. It may be in several
years, or right after this speech. It
may be finding a way to feed 1000
starving children, or simply com-
forting a fellow student. Gandhi
said, “Whatever you do may seem
insignificant to you, but it is most
important that you do it.” To me,
this means that this is how things
change in the world, because small
actions can often turn into some-
thing greater. As Waldorf students
and as individuals, each one of you
has unique gifts. Each one of you
has something to offer that can help
someone else, and I believe that if
you live a wakeful life, you will find
that opportunity to give of yourself.
Because to me, this is what being a
human being is all about.
Edward Everett Hale was an
American writer, pastor, and
abolitionist. He said the follow-
ing, and I’ll leave you with this
thought:
Alumni News
What Would Steiner Say?
The History of Architecture is the art of creating an enveloping, enclosed space,
with the help of a variety of materials and by the means of various
Architecture
shapes and forms, either for ordinary activities and dwellings or for
religious purposes. Therefore it is connected with the soul life of hu-
man beings. It originates from the soul, and it can be comprehended
green meadow-style to the extent that the soul can be comprehended. ~Rudolf Steiner
G
reen Meadow’s Grade 12
architecture block, taught
by Alix Christofides Lowen-
thal, provides an overview
of the architectural forms and styles
associated with primary historical pe-
riods both in terms of their respective
characteristics and innovations, and
as they express the various and evolv-
ing perspectives of architecture as an
art. The architectural philosophy of
John Ruskin serves as the philosophi-
cal foundation of this course. This past
fall, the class took several field trips,
visiting recently restored Grand Cen-
tral Station, Warren & Wetmore’s 1913
Beaux Arts design; the 2006 Hearst
Tower designed by Norman Foster,
the first Manhattan skyscraper built
after 9/11 and NYC’s first green build-
ing (winner of the gold designation
from the LEED certification program);
the architectural firm of Urbahn As-
sociates; prominent artist Frederick
Church’s 1872 Hudson River estate,
Olana, designed by Calvert Vaux in the
Persian/Victorian style; Frank Gehry’s
Performing Arts Center at Bard Col-
lege; and the local Jerrahi Mosque.
Students compiled notebooks
containing daily class notes, sketches,
and nightly homework drawings of
significant buildings and styles. Each Illustrations taken from Alice Shi’s Main Lesson book
student independently studied a lo-
cal architectural icon and wrote a re- Our thanks to Jon Wolfe ’97 who graciously provid-
search paper on it. The class formed ed us with this quotation by Rudolf Steiner from a
teams, each team designing and con- lecture given in Berlin on 5 February 1913 and ex-
structing models for a final project cerpted from Architecture as a Synthesis of the Arts,
demonstrating their understanding of by Rudolf Steiner (translated by Johanna Collis, Dor-
architectural principles. othy Osmond, Rex Raab and Jean Schmid-Bailey) .
Spring 2008 | 29

Contributors
Julia Korthals Altes ‘97 (you knew her
as Julia Slone) majored in performance
studies at Marlboro College. She has
since worked as a music teacher, voice
coach, and choral director. She has trav-
eled abroad, lived in a yurt, and moved to
Brattleboro, VT, where she now lives with
her husband, Tristan Korthals Altes. Julia is
in the process of recording an indie rock
album; she performs as a singer with sev-
eral groups, and is studying the Québécois
fiddle. Although at times she hears the call
of Montréal, Austin, New York, and L.A.,
Julia chooses to launch her music career
from New England, in the context of com-
munity, and the land she so loves.
Elliot Berkowitz ’92 says: “My first job
was working with Chris Onderdonk ’91 for
Michael Miller at Green Meadow. I credit
Mr. Miller for teaching me about work
ethic; he really inspired me to appreciate
something well made. I worked at GMWS
for 3 summers before turning to lifeguard-
ing at the Pond through my first summer
back from college. In the summer of 1996,
I got my first job in construction working
with a local contractor who had finished
my parents’ house the prior year. I then
worked for several other contractors and
woodworkers and cabinet makers before
starting my own business. When I’m not
working, I am working—We now have
20 employees! (including Kevin Masback
who was hired as employee #2 in 2001). I
am an avid golfer, I hang with friends and
travel. I try to get out to Napa Valley at least
once a year to visit Micah Flynn ‘94 and I
just got back from Costa Rica. I will be go-
ing to India this year to visit my brother,
Michael ‘88, and his family, who moved to
Mumbai last fall.”
Nathaniel Burger ’94 lives with his girl-
friend, Suzy, in Boulder, CO. During the
winter, they can be found telemark skiing
in the backcountry or at one of the many
local resorts. In the summer, they can
be found eating appetizers or sipping a
30 | Alumni Magazine
latte downtown on Pearl Street; mountain
and road cycling; running, backpacking or
working on their houses. “It’s a rough life
out here, I tell you!”
Winslow Eliot is a Waldorf graduate of Mi-
chael Hall School in Sussex, England. Her
novels have been translated into eleven
languages and published in twenty coun-
tries. After graduating from Scripps Col-
lege in California and the Publishing Pro-
cedures Course at Radcliffe, Eliot received
her Waldorf High School Teacher Certifica-
tion from the Center for Anthroposophy
in Wilton, NH, and is currently working as
outreach associate for AWSNA. She lives in
Massachusetts with her husband and two
children.
Mick Follari ‘90 continues to pursue a bit
of a renaissance life. He has taught science
and math blocks in Waldorf schools around
the country, is a design/build entrepre-
neur, and a web design/developer. He’s
working on a Descriptive/Projective Ge-
ometry book, and says hopefully someday
he’ll finish the novel he’s begun writing. For
fun, he casts himself around the globe in
search of remote cliffs to ascend: cold, icy
walls of granite that scratch at the belly of
heaven (read: are high-altitude) or remote
jungles / deserts / tundra / beaches; won-
derfully different cultures to photograph
(www.follari.com); and people, experi-
ences, and ideas that will help him make
sense of it all. To those ends, he’s managed
to stumble through about 30 countries,
never had the same career for more than 4
years (or girlfriend for 2, though hopefully
that’ll change), and hasn’t yet managed
to go back to school. But then, people
tell him “30s are the new 20s.” He says, “I’m
just trying to keep the misty zeitgeist from
turning my work quixotic”.
Sherab Kloppenburg ‘92 lives in Car-
bondale, CO, where she divides her time
between building and designing residen-
tial and commercial buildings. She is the
design department for Jacober Brothers
Construction (www.JacoberBrothers.com).
Her most recent project is ELLA, a bistro in
a re-used / refurbished / restored turn-of-
the-century building in downtown Carbon-
dale, where all interior and exterior finishes
are recycled, re-used, low VOC, and, when
possible, locally manufactured materials.
Besides her work in Carbondale, Sherab is
also working for a new educational project
called “The Other 90%.” Along with design-
ers and educators from around the world,
she is developing design curricula for uni-
versities in the US and overseas to encour-
age young designers to design for the 90%
of people who live without the basics of
food, water, and shelter.
Thomas McArdle ‘91, a graduate of the
University of Chicago, worked in insurance
for 9 years in the Chicago area, leaving his
position as a VP of Sales in 2005 to hike the
Pacific Crest Trail and then move to Helena,
MT. His brother, Daniel McArdle ’88, also
lives there, as does their mom, Ruth (“we’re
still trying to talk my Dad into joining us”).
His sister, Laura ’86, works in Alaska during
the summer and spends winters in Brazil.
Thomas works as Staff Director of AAA
MountainWest in Montana, Wyoming and
Alaska, and has participated in the past 11
Chicago Marathons and in Montana’s “Griz-
zly Marathon” last summer. He and his girl-
friend, Angela Albers, are expecting their
first child in June.
Mimi Satriano worked in the GMWS high
school office for seven years. She is the
mother of two GMWS graduates, Maureen
’88 and Nicholas ’90, and grandmother of
one new Waldorf student (in the nursery
program) and three more potential candi-
dates, ranging in age from 3 to 1.
Deborah Schaeffer ’01 grew up in Ber-
gen County, in northern New Jersey. She
attended Green Meadow High School,
graduating in 2001, and went on to earn
her B.A. in Environmental Studies and Bi-
ology at Bowdoin College. After gradua-
tion, she moved to New York City, where
she spent two years working with inner-
city children in schools and after-school
programs. She is currently teaching high
school life sciences and math at Green
Meadow.
Julika Stackelberg-Addo grew up in
Heidelberg, Germany, where she attend-
ed the freie Waldorf Schule. After high
school, she moved to South Africa, where
she assisted in several Waldorf kindergar-
tens. She enrolled in Sunbridge’s Orienta-
tion Year before moving to the University
of London, where she earned a B.A. in
African and Development Studies. After
a year working with an international de-
velopment organization, she returned to
Sunbridge as Development Director.