GreenStar Community Projects, Inc.

Program Director

Kirtrina Baxter

Program Coordinator

Elizabeth Karabinakis

Board of Directors

Ellen Baer (President)

Sharon Clarke

Daniel Hoffman

Brandon Kane

Lenore Olmstead (Vice President)

Claudia Stoscheck (Treasurer)

Kirtrina Baxter just finished her Masters degree in Ethnomusicology, the study of music and culture. She has worked with youth and adults in human services for the past 10 years being in service to a diverse population from at-risk youth, to folks suffering from mental illness. In her studies and personal life, Kirtrina is an experienced drummer who researches drumming of the African Diaspora; as well as, women and the drum. She has taught drumming classes and workshops for elementary schools, high school students, colleges, womens and spiritual groups each with a focus of community building, anti-race issues, personal growth and empowerment. In her current role as program manager, Kirtrina coordinates programs for children of all ages and the community at large.

Liz Karabinakis helped form GreenStar Community Projects, Inc. (GSCP) as GreenStar Cooperative Market's first Member Services Manager in 2004. Although no longer a manager at the Co-op, she continues to help GreenStar fulfill its mission to improve the community's access to healthy food as the Program Coordinator of GSCP, the co-op's tax-exempt non-profit affiliate.

Liz also currently serves as the Community Food Educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County, is the Vice President of the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), facilitates Talking Circles on Race & Racism for the Multicultural Resource Center and co-organizes Ithaca's annual Summertime Block Party. Liz received an Environmental Systems Engineering degree with a concentration on Sustainable Community Development from Cornell University.

Liz's goal is to use the cooperative model and principles to re-regionalize a sustainable and equitable food system that is healthy for all people and the web of life that supports us. Her work with cooperatives began while in Brazil as a solidarity worker with MST (Landless Workers Movement) where she taught and learned on Cooperativa Assentamento Terra Livre (Cooperative Settlement of Free Land, COOPCAL) and later lived deep in restricted areas of the Amazon with indigenous river dwelling communities.

Liz’s interests include member/producer/worker-owned co-ops as an alternative model to profit-driven corporations, fostering food equity & sovereignty, promoting cooperation, experiencing different food cultures around the world and honoring the roots of the sustainability movement with indigenous peoples.

Ellen Baer has worked in the non-profit sector for approximately 28 years. She graduated from Cornell University in 1978 and with an MBA from Syracuse University in 1999. Besides serving on the GSCP board, she also serves on the Ithaca Town Planning Board. Other community activities also include helping coordinate the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Day and the Sisterfriend's Celebration Day.

Lenore Olmstead is a founding member and current president of GreenStar Community Projects, Inc. She worked for GreenStar Co-op as Coordinating Manager in the late 1980s for three years, HR Manager for five years ending in 2002, and as a member of the GS Council for three years. She currently serves as Director of Human Resources at Alternatives Federal Credit Union.

Before coming to Ithaca, she worked as a manager of natural food stores in Oneonta, NY and Boston, MA. For six years, she worked at Oxfam America in Boston where she was Co-Director of the Fast for a World Harvest, a member of the Commission of Dialogue with the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka, and a staff member on an Oxfam America study tour linking farmers and farm workers in the United States with farmers in Nicaragua. In Ithaca, she has worked as Associate Director and Acting Director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy. She has BA in Sociology from Fordham University, an MS in Adult Education from Cornell University with a thesis on diversity trainers and racism and a Senior Professional in Human Resources Certificate.

Her interests focus on providing healthy food options in an affordable and inclusive way to low income members of the community and on educating the broader community on the role of cooperatives and a sustainable local food system in community well being.