An Article Out Loud from the Domestic Preparedness Journal, October 19, 2022.
Even though food is necessary for survival, it is not common to see agricultural workers at a disaster training exercise. However, one organization demonstrates why training these volunteers with emergency preparedness and response skills is essential for future large-scale disasters.
Narrated by MacGregor Stephenson.
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Zsofia Pasztor
Zsofia Pasztor, executive co-director of Farmer Frog, is a refugee from Hungary during the Soviet times and is one of the founders and executive co-directors of the nonprofit organization Farmer Frog. She teaches restoration horticulture, urban agriculture, aquaponics, and low-impact development at several Puget Sound colleges and abroad. In addition, she trains professionals in sustainable site management, small-scale integrated agriculture, community development, and natural resource conservation. She is a TEDx presenter, an author of professional manuals and the book Rain Gardens for the Pacific Northwest, an award-winning landscape designer, certified Blue Economy consultant, Caring Economy consultant, Low-Impact-Development (LID) designer and construction consultant, professional horticulturist, permaculture designer, Filtrexx designer, commercial urban agriculturist, tree risk assessor, and arborist. With her amazing Farmer Frog Team and sister-partner, Lynda Zambrano, she recently co-founded the Fresh Food Coalition and oversees the distribution of food and supplies nationally to over three million people in need.
Szabolcs (Szabi) Pasztor
Szabolcs (Szabi) Pasztor, director of administration for Farmer Frog, is a first-generation Hungarian American and hard-working millennial dedicating herself to changing the failing systems in America. She has a background in civil engineering, politics, law, advocacy, executive management, food assistance, distribution, and logistics. She is very passionate in her work, especially in preparing her community for what she believes is the greatest challenge humankind has faced – the Climate Crisis. And she also deeply works to recognize, understand, and interface with what she believes is the most significant barrier humanity has faced – institutional systems of trauma and oppression, especially the institution of racism. She fights for what is right and always seeks to understand more about her own privilege as a white transwoman, striving for equity and social justice broadcasted in the principles of her work wherever she goes.
