Illène Pevec, Ph.D

Illène is a champion for healthy eating and active living and recognized internationally, nationally and locally as a leader in the field. She has led participatory community planning processes in Canada, Brazil and the US for health projects involving physical activity, nutrition, and food growing. She has raised the money for four at-risk communities to implement school and community gardens; two projects have won national awards in Canada and Brazil. Her publications include a Western Canadian ethnobotany curriculum linking food, plants and people, an annotated bibliography on youth and gardens for Oxford University press, and research papers relevant to the health impacts of organic food growing on youth. She is currently writing a book for New Village Press on organic gardening’s health benefits for adolescents in the South Bronx, East Harlem, East Oakland and rural and urban Colorado and helping with a food shed mapping project in the Roaring Fork Valley, as well as developing micro-enterprises with high students to help support their school garden financially.

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