Lea Favor
Executive Director
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The one thing that has been a constant in Lea's life is her passion for working with students of all ages. Lea believes it is critical to foster environments where young people feel valued and affirmed in their school communities to inspire their academic achievement and civic engagement.

Lea is enthusiastic about environmental and social justice issues and has experience in developing curricula that is culturally relevant. Lea has devoted her career to working in the nonprofit and education fields. Prior to Eco Education she was the Director of Education & Evaluation at Youth Frontiers. She also spent 13 years at The Blake School (Minneapolis) in a variety of administrative roles including Grade Dean, Assistant Athletic Director, and Girls Varsity Basketball Coach.

Lea and her family reside in Maple Grove. She is a member of the Weaver Lake Conservation Association and in her free time enjoys kayaking, traveling, reading, and playing tennis. Lea has three beautiful daughters, Cassidy, Keagan, and Skya, and is married to Michael Favor who is the Principal of Robbinsdale Cooper High School. Lea is the proud daughter of Karen and George Blackwell who are not only her role models but also her best friends. Lea received her B.A. and M.Ed. in Educational Administration from the University of Minnesota, where she was also a member of the Women's Gopher Basketball team (1985-1989).

Caty Royce
Associate Director
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Caty Royce is a career organizer, having spent her professional life working to develop and implement strategies that make structural change for economically fragile communities and communities of color. Caty began her journey as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, West Africa where, as a rural development agent, she worked with a rural community to enhance health and economic opportunities for its members.

For eighteen years serving as the Director of the Community Stabilization Project, Caty organized in the metropolitan area developing public policy and organizing campaigns around the issues of affordable housing and race. Community members working with Caty have preserved over 5000 units of affordable housing and passed the first affordable housing set aside program in the state of Minnesota. As a member of the Equal Access Group, Caty was instrumental in the creation of the first Equal Access ordinance in the nation: ensuring that businesses owned by people of color, women and people with disabilities will benefit from contracts with the city of St. Paul. The Saint Paul City Council proclaimed November 28, 2007, “Caty Royce day” thanking her for “the love, creativity, faith and dedication that she has invested in making the world a better place.” For the next two years Caty worked to develop programming, policy and community action aimed at racial and economic integration as Director of Fund for an Open Society.

Caty lives in South Minneapolis with her daughter and three dogs, not far from her adult son and granddaughter.

Sara Bischoff
Communications and Development Manager
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Sara is a designer, communications strategist, and local food advocate. She believes that creativity and collaboration can empower individuals to address complex community needs and foster community engagement.

In addition to her work with Eco Education, Sara has collaborated with several local small businesses and social profit organizations on design and communications projects and, during the growing season, stays busy with her family’s organic farm located near Vasa, Minnesota.

Sara received her B.S. in marketing communications and environmental studies from The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Elise Griffin
Program and Youth Board Coordinator
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Elise is interested in exploring the intersectionalities of environmental issues, identity, privilege, oppression, and community agency. As Program and Youth Board Coordinator she is working to collaboratively recognize difference and synchronize inclusive initiatives and actions with emerging multicultural needs in the commons of our urban communities.

As a recent graduate from Macalester College, Elise received her bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in international issues and a minor in environmental studies. Elise has studied black bear behavior and migration in Ely, Minnesota, worked hard building trails in the Alaskan wilderness, and served as the Environmental Justice Coordinator and Bike Share Program Coordinator of Macalester College. Her environmental journey began in when she studied abroad in Tibet, Nepal, and India on a Himalayan Studies Program. While she was there she lived with Tibetan refugees, researched climate change in the Himalayas, and spent her time talking to some of the first communities to experience the devastating floods, droughts, and erosion caused by global warming.

She enjoys spending her time playing outside, celebrating with friends and family by making food and drink, and working to be courageous and compassionate every day.

Micaela Mathre
Americorps Promise Fellow
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Micaela joins Eco Education excited to connect her desire to build relationships with youth to her interest in dialogue and action around environmental justice. She is a learner and an adventurer, perpetually asking questions and attempting to live consciously. She studied Global Studies, with an emphasis in International Development, at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles, California.

Through working with the South Central Farmer’s Cooperative in Los Angeles, one of the largest urban farms in the United States, she was exposed to and compelled by urban food sovereignty issues. Her senior year of school was spent working on women’s land rights in rural Tanzania and community development in northern Mozambique. While working with both grassroots and international organizations, it became increasingly evident to her that she wanted to explore the intersection of social justice and environmental issues in an effort to holistically address both. After graduating, she taught English in South Korea for a year. While teaching within a rigorous academic system, she discovered a passion for bringing creativity and imagination into the classroom. 

Micaela loves all things artistic, mangoes, the color turquoise and attempts to do one thing every day that scares her.

Abe Levine
Youth Promise Fellow
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Abe (pronounced uh-bee) is a student-teacher, a dancer, and a first-year associate of the Eco Education staff. He holds a degree in Religious Studies from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. There, he participated in issues of food justice as a sustainability assistant for the college’s dining service hall. His work focused around creating a mindful eating environment where consumers regularly consider food pathways—its origins and processing, from farm to fork to its basic elements, where consumers recognize those who invest their efforts into making food available, and develop greater consciousness for the eater’s impact in an interdependent food system.

In the college’s center for religious and spiritual life, Abe became a senior teacher of an intentional Buddhist community, rooted in meditative practice and engagement with questions around identity formation and compassionate action shared by collegiate peers. As a leader of Mac Salsa, an on-campus salsa dance group, he sought to provide a space where students could examine and appreciate the role of movement in well-being. Abe is inspired by the opportunity to guide students in their process of growth and self-discovery. Keen to redefining notions of masculinity that promote violence and aggression towards one’s own emotions while encouraging harmful relationships of domination and disrespect, Abe served as mentor in a collective for men of color as well as an at-risk, young men’s group at a local nonprofit, seeking to invoke a healing process via the recognition of past trauma and the potential for alternative modes of self-definition that incorporate the full range of male experience and cultivate relationships founded on common ground.

Abe is steadily on a path towards becoming a full-time teacher and mentor. He is dedicated to the collaboration between students, school staff and faculty, and community partners towards the envisioning and co-creation of fully empowering, illuminating, and inviting educational endeavors.

Wendy Hanson
Financial Admistrator

Wendy holds a B.A. in English and a M.A. in Organizational Development. She also works as the Human Resources Director at Saint Thomas Academy. Wendy has worked as the accountant for Eco Education since 2009.