Chapter Directors

President

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AMANDA WRAY founded the Greater Baltimore Wild Ones Seedling Chapter in 2021 out of a passion for native plants, and has, along with her fellow board members, continued to build the group through outreach and educational activities and now serves as President.

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Last year, she assisted with and testified for the bill which became adopted into law as the Maryland Native Plants Program, which codifies an official list of Maryland Native Plants, encourages nurseries and growers to identify official Maryland Native Plants through signage, and provides a position at the Maryland Extension Office for a native plants educator. Prior to this, she founded the Towson Native Garden Contest, now in its third year, as a way to provide prestige and support for native gardeners.

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She assisted in development (by providing design and illustration) of the 2022 edition of the book, Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas Field Guide, which builds upon previous editions of this well-loved reference book, as well as helped with the design of the Mid-Atlantic Invaders Tool, an online database of invasive plants. She runs three Facebook groups focused on native plants and is currently offering fall garden signage to home gardeners to educate

passers-by on the importance of fallen leaves and dried stalks as habitat.

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Amanda resides in the Towson area and has added more than 50 native trees and a variety of native herbaceous plants to her landscape since moving to the area in 2017 from Southern California, where she worked in garden design with drought tolerant native plants to shrink the footprint of lawns on residential properties. Her career also includes work as a reporter, editor and graphic designer, and has degrees in communication and graphic design.

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Through her work with Wild Ones Greater Baltimore, she is forging community and organizational connections to further aid in partnership and outreach opportunities to help spread awareness of the critical importance of native plants to the health of our vital ecosystems.

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Vice President

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VINAYA FRANK  is the Vice President and Program Chair for the Greater Baltimore Wild Ones Chapter and also a Master Gardener with the University of Maryland Extension (UME). Her passion for native plants is the primary driver for the outreach and educational events she has planned and been a part of as a Wild Ones Board member as well as a Master Gardener. Along with healthy biodiversity in our landscapes, she also believes in racial and ethnic biodiversity in

all aspects of human lives. Toward that goal, she also serves as Co-Chair on the Diversity Committee of the UME program.

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Vinaya lives in Ellicott City on a 0.5 acre lawn-free, wooded yard that sustains not only the local wildlife, but also its human occupants as they continue to grow their own food. She has been gardening for more than 15 years, starting in the tropical climate of India and to now the temperate deciduous region of eastern United States. She truly believes that a yard should be fully functional and a part of a healthy ecosystem, and so her entire family, including their 3-year-old son, contributes toward adding more native plants and toward removal of invasive species to provide native species a chance to survive. In just a short time of 3 years, Vinaya has added more than 200 different species of native plants and successfully removed several invasive species from her yard.

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Prior to serving in several volunteer positions, Vinaya worked as an Affirmative Action and Compliance Consultant where she assisted several US based federal contractors on their affirmative action requirements. She also led several compensation and pay equity projects, diversity analytics as well as compliance audits for clients across the globe. She is passionate about fostering racial diversity in the corporate world and providing several minority groups a chance to shine. She has also worked as a soft skills trainer where she custom-designed and delivered training on several topics including business communication, time management, negotiation skills, team skills, stress management, and problem solving.

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Secretary

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ANNE GNEO  joined the Wild Ones Board as the Secretary in the summer of 2022 shortly after the Greater Baltimore seedling was founded and volunteered to add the role of Marketing Chair a few months later. As the group has quickly grown, Anne has been inspired by the immense interest in environmentally sound landscaping and through meeting other amazing local native plant gardeners.

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With the goal of making the world a little better, Anne has volunteered for many community organizations throughout the years. Currently, in addition to her roles at Wild Ones, she is a board member for the local PTA, a CASA (court appointed special advocate for foster children) and volunteers at Luna’s House, a local animal shelter.

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Anne lives in Bel Air, Maryland on a .2 acre suburban lot and is a stay-at-home mom to 2 teenage children. She has been gardening for over 20 years, but only recently realized the importance of gardening with the entire ecosystem in mind. For the past 3 years, she has been prioritizing adding native plants and planting “green” mulch. Although established non-native plants remain, all invasive plants have been removed and more than 100 native plants have been added that are spreading throughout the landscape.

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Treasurer

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APRIL KERNS  is a founding member of Wild Ones Greater Baltimore. A Maryland native, April grew up delighting in the flora and fauna of the area. What started with filling her parents’ house with praying mantis hatchlings further developed while studying Biology at Goucher College.

 

She developed a love for research and complicated, unanswered questions, however after a semester of getting lost in the woods studying the effect on flora of BT treated or logged areas of Oregon Ridge, April decided to go to law school. She continued to feed her passion for the environment in her free time. April is Counsel at Franklin & Prokopik, representing employers and insurers in workers’ compensation matters before the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission, Circuit Courts, and appellate courts.

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April is delighted to share the joy of native plants and their associations with all walks of life and all stages of interest. She hopes to encourage and support anyone planting native plants, whether they have one manicured cultivar or a whole ecosystem on their property. She lives in Owings Mills on over an acre where she experiments with whatever native plants speak to her. She has hosted the 2023 plant swaps.

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Membership Chair

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KAREN SHAVIN  is a founding member of the Greater Baltimore Wild Ones Chapter. A complete novice, Karen was hooked on natives through a Wild Ones project a few years ago and has been on a crash course to learn best management practices (BMPs) to restore and preserve our ecosystem. She has been taking classes at the Community College of Baltimore County in their horticultural program, at Mt. Cuba Center in their Ecological Gardening Certificate program, and through Penn State's Extension program, as well as workshops offered through New Directions in the American Landscape. She volunteers at Oregon Ridge Nature Center as a Master Naturalist and is a Level 1 certified Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional.

 

As a licensed massage therapist, Karen works in the field of somatic education with traumas held in the body. Previously positions included public and private educational settings, focusing on children with special needs. The foundation for all her work comes from a deep understanding that we are one, connected at a cellular level as well as through our actions. The

work is the same; only the method changes.

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Karen lives in the Towson area, just north of the City line, in a small row home with an even smaller yard. Although small, front and back yards have no turf grass and is home to more than 87 native species, along with the insects, birds, and small mammals who share the space. She has found great joy in sharing what she's learning with her two grandchildren, who are learning to see their urban environment through new eyes.

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