Melissa spent much of her youth in Northern Virginia. Suburban life left her craving the woods and farming. College landed her in the rural mountains of North Carolina. As a young adult she worked in many landscapes an; roles including in fire ecology in Tennessee, protecting Cranberry bogs in Cape Cod, counting ants and seeds in the Mohave Desert, planting rice and corn in a small village in Panama, working as an environmental educator and as a para-educator for preschool-aged children and 13 plus years in farming.

Melissa co-founded Craftsbury Saplings. She was the Board Chair when we opened our doors in 2017, and became the Executive Director in 2021. With 3 young children and a desire to build roots and build community, Saplings has been a large focus of her time since its founding.

Emily was born in Craftsbury, graduated from Craftsbury Academy in 1994 and studied musical composition and education at Bennington College where she received a BA in 1999. She also received a Montessori 0-3 diploma from the North American Montessori Center in 2017.

Starting in 1990 she went on her first singing tour overseas in England and continued to tour with Village Harmony and Bread and Puppet around the world on and off until 2004. These two large and very influential Vermont communities made a big impression on her and she started a music camp in the summer to pass on songs, puppetry and whatever she had learned to local Craftsbury kids. She met her husband Vasili who was a Bread and Puppet Company member at the time, and soon after moved to Portland Oregon so Vasili could break into the world of brewing and they could settle down.

It was in Portland that Emily discovered her passion for the Montessori world and working with toddlers. She worked for ten years at a fabulous Montessori school and learned everything she could from her lovely mentors and the thriving Portland Montessori community.

She moved back from Portland in 2015 with her family and immediately found herself taking care of children and starting a Montessori classroom in her house. A few years later Craftsbury Saplings was born and Emily got to be the toddler teacher!

When she’s not at Saplings Emily enjoys singing with a quartet called Farm Song, hanging with her family, gardening, reading, crafting, nature walks and cooking.

Hannah willingly, and with excitement, took up the role of leading in the toddler classroom while beginning an apprenticeship program in Early Education! She has inspired a loving and thoughtful space for the children in her care. We are so grateful for her steadfast commitment, gentle demeanor, and consistency that provides a loving space for children to grow.

Sarah grew up north of Richmond, VA, and spent her childhood summers exploring the shores of the Chesapeake Bay at Camp Wright, a resident camp on Kent Island, Maryland. This sparked her love for the outdoors and nature, leading her to pursue a degree in earth science from James Madison University. Her weekends in college were spent discovering the geologic history of the mid-Atlantic throughout Virginia, West Virginia, and even Kentucky. She loved learning about the environment around her and dreamed of working as a NPS park ranger. This dream came true in the summer of 2016 when she volunteered at Jewel Cave NM in South Dakota and in the summer 2017 when worked as a park guide at the Grand Canyon National Park. While she enjoyed her time with the NPS it didn’t seem like a perfect fit. After completing her degree in 2018, she spent the summer road-tripping the east coast with her now husband, Michael, visiting as many NPS sites as possible. Following this adventure, she spent the fall of 2018 as part of the Disney College Program working merchandise in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. After completing the program she moved to Louisiana to be with Michael as he attended LSU in pursuit of a PhD in Geology. In 2019 she landed at a nature center in Baton Rouge where she spent 4 years working as an outdoor educator; leading hikes, summer camps, and small classes. It was there that she found her love for working with preschool-aged children. She is very excited to be a part of the Saplings team and share her love for exploring the outdoors with the preschool class!

Madeleine/Maddie grew up in Middlesex, Vermont, and currently lives in Hardwick. She comes to us with a background in early childhood education and chose early education because she enjoys working caring for children. She loves working at Saplings because it is a wonderful community to be a part of and see all the development within the daycare. In her free time, she likes to read, walk, hike, spend time with friends and family, and play with her dogs. She is currently working towards a degree in early childhood education through CCV.

Judy grew up in St. Johnsbury, and ran off to Boston to attend Tufts University, earning a BA in political science(!). After a few stints with the Experiment in International Living in England and the Netherlands, some wandering around Europe, and a few years in southern Vermont doing a variety of jobs (including driving a school bus back and forth to NYC twice a week, and working for a woodworker and a farmer), she earned a MED in special education from UVM, married Karl, built a log house and settled in Greensboro Bend, starting a family (Ben and Leona), and settling into teaching, ending up at Craftsbury Elementary for thirty years as a special educator and reading teacher. Retiring in 2015, she never could quite leave the kids behind and subbed for a number of years until Kristen Urie talked her into working for Saplings. After almost three years at Saplings, she’s still having too much fun with the kids and staff to retire! An addicted gardener, she also sings in choruses, knits and sometimes quilts, cross country skis and snowshoes, reads to her grandchildren, and is a long term volunteer with the Bread and Puppet Theater.

Michelle is our newest member of the team working in the pre-K on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and "Floating" between classes on Tuesday and Friday. Michelle comes to us with many years working as a paraprofessional in the public school system. She has been an observant and quick learner, and brings sleds and shovels full of patience and kindness to our classroom.

Heather arrives with humor, patience, and a plate of cookies as she steadily moves and adapts to all the various needs of the week. She slips right into all the roles and plays an excellent game of Tetris, making sure that we have all of the right people in the right places day to day so we can keep our doors open through illness and other bumps in the road..

Hillary brings to Saplings 16+ years of administrative experience, and a deep desire to help families, in any capacity, in the one area that all but crippled her and her husband as parents of young children: childcare. To be able to participate in the growth of this invaluable community service, as well as watching her son flourish in the program, unquestionably makes up for living an hour away from the closest ski area.

Renée Rossi grew up in Detroit and lives most of the year in the Craftsbury area. She worked 30+ years as an ENT surgeon in Boston and Texas and now teaches integrative medicine part-time combining allopathy and holistic medicine (Ayurveda). She raised her two sons in Texas and truly enjoyed being a co-op parent at their cooperative developmental preschool. She believes strongly in the importance of a stable and supportive early childhood holding environment so all young children can have the best opportunities for healthy growth and secure attachment.

My mother and grandmother gave me the opportunities to experience the magic of childhood. Through experiencing nature on the farm and in the forest, I have developed a lifelong love of the beauty of my surroundings, the love of reading, and the joy music adds to your life.

As I became an adult, I saw the need for this passion to be instilled in children. I pursued a career in education.

I have spent 30 years in the area of Early Childhood Education as a teacher, mentor and advocate. I trained pre-service teachers at the University of New Hampshire and received my master’s degree in Early Childhood Special Education, earning a certificate in leadership and as a parent advocate.

Two years ago, my husband, Kevin, and I moved to the NEK. We purchased a farm and are in the process of creating a berry farm. I also grow flowers and vegetables. We have just finished building a greenhouse! The missing piece of this was children. I need to watch children think, lean and interact.

Saplings is a wonderful opportunity for me, as our philosophies on children mesh well together.