Our People

Chloe Smith grew up in Scottsville and studied Illustration at RIT. Since 2014, she has worked as a local artist & muralist with a passion for beautifying the community she lives in. She started 490 Farmers in 2017 as an effort to build community, and feels so blessed to have seen it come to fruition and to have found community in the process. Chloe loves vegetables, animals, being outdoors, and traveling.

Email: csmith@490farmers.org

Sarah has been gardening with 490 since the spring of 2020. She had very little gardening knowledge before this, but now, plants are quite a large chunk of her personality. She works as a speech-language pathologist and is super passionate about diversity and inclusion of all. Sarah also loves to craft and has made a lot of the signs you’ll see around the garden. She is fluent in French, and learning a few more languages -- Spanish, Hebrew, and ASL. She also loves kayaking, picnicking, and hiking! Anything with some sunshine. 

Sarah's favorite vegetable at the moment is brussel sprouts! She cuts them in half and then bakes them in the oven with oil, balsamic vinegar, and sometimes even sweet fig balsamic or smoked paprika.

Email: scline@490farmers.org

Kel is proud to call Rochester home since arriving in 2016 to attend RIT. They completed their degree in American Sign Language-English Interpreting and are currently self-employed, offering interpreting services on a freelance basis. It is a pleasure to support the bridge between Rochester’s hearing and Deaf communities, and Kel looks forward to bringing that passion for connection and togetherness to 490 Farmers. 

Kel is motivated by the belief that joy is resilience and that we are responsible to make revolution irresistible. Accordingly, they can be found anywhere friends are gathering, whether deep in the woods or out at disco night.

Email: kmullaney@490farmers.org

Kay moved to Rochester in 2022 and fell in love with the city's many parks and abundant spirit of conscious and caring community, both at 490 and in the activist community at large. A voracious learner and experimenter, they seek to build skills and relations of care and reciprocity which can serve as an alternative to polarization, atomization, and systems of dominance. A creature of many talents, they love hacking arcane computer systems as much as getting their hands dirty in the garden, as well as being an avid reader of critical philosophy and science fiction.

If they were a plant, they would be a slime mold: adaptable, a curious explorer, and kinda sticky.

Email: kmadeira@490farmers.org