SEEDS Staff
Jane Henry – Educational Garden Assistant
Jane is a sustainable urban agriculture technician and SEEDS’ new educational garden assistant! She’s always had a passion for sustainability and education and she hopes to open her own educational farm one day. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and just moved up to Durham this year with her husband. She’s a complete math and Star Trek geek and loves a good game of cosmic bowling. She’s really looking forward to working at SEEDS and playing in the sun and dirt while growing good food!
Julie Wells – Interim Managing Director
Julie Wells has made her career in non-profit work- from community advocacy to institutional change, Julie has immersed herself in non-profit culture and issues that affect disenfranchised populations for 27 years. She began her career working with students with development disabilities, moved into work with students in the criminal justice system and has created replicated models of programs that support the most vulnerable populations in central North Carolina.
Through her work with difficult to engage populations, Julie has focused on research-based practices that help her connect with adolescents who are traditionally wary of adults, particularly those coming from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Hired as an Executive Director for a small non-profit in 2011, Julie took a community program and built it into one of the most effective and impactful full-scale non-profits for youth who struggle to meet their educational and vocational potential because of access to opportunities and systemic oppression. She led 2 mergers to grow impact and during her tenure as an Executive Director she raised in excess of $4 million to support youth in Durham.
She is a Duke University Durham Community Fellow, a 2016 Goodman Fellow and the recipient of the 2017 Community Service Award though Leadership Triangle. Julie is also the founder of the UNITY Fellowship, a capacity building and strategic leadership development program for nonprofit leaders designed to address the over-saturation and underdevelopment of the Durham non-profit community. Through the creation of the UNITY Fellowship, she has worked with 30 small non-profits- mostly led by women and BIPOC Executive Directors- to define their theory of change, their impact, and how to create funding strategies and growth metrics that are sustainable.
Julie worked with the Latino Community Credit Union as a community partner for years- developing a nationally recognized youth asset development model- pairing non-custodial accounts with financial capability training and jobs. In the Fall of 2021, she joined their team as the Vice President of the Latino Community Development Center- the non-profit membership organization that builds out community initiatives.
