Amber Baker for Ridgefield School Board

What a fun group of people out this morning. Get those ballots in today, Ridgefield!

We have always involved our kids in conversations about voting and why it is important. This year my daughter was extra interested in sitting with me and Jason to fill in our ballots, look them over, and understand the different envelops and where to sign them. She wanted to know all the details and all the steps. Recently she also announced that she plans to run for the school board when she is old enough. I am honored that this campaign process has inspired at least one other future school board candidate. May we continue to inspire our younger ones to be engaged in our community, step into leadership, and see local offices as worthy of our energy and each of us as worthy for those positions. Happy Election Day!

Thank you to the teachers, community members, colleagues, Ridgefield parents and grandparents that have written an endorsement. Here they are all in one place. For the full image texts, please see past posts. I greatly appreciate all of your kind words and vote of confidence.

With over a decade of experience working in the non-profit sector and 15 years as a small-business owner, I am highly qualified for this role. I have hands-on experience with budgeting and fiscal management from my time working in both nonprofits and the farm business. I know how to manage budgets with tight margins.

I have served as a board member for multiple nonprofits in the region and worked as the program director for Village Gardens, a community food initiative. During my tenure at Village Gardens, I supported high school-aged students to expand their neighborhood market garden project to a farm-scale business and developed youth leadership and employment training programs. I also supported other food-based micro-enterprise development and facilitated a two-year community-based business planning process to launch what became a national model non-profit healthy corner store in a community with few grocery options.

These initiatives helped me build my skills in community engagement, facilitation, group strategic planning, business planning and creating relationships with people from all walks of life. Through these projects I had the opportunity to build collaborative partnerships with local governments, private businesses and land-owners, farmers, grocery consultants, public housing community leaders, other nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, youth leaders and their families, public health leaders, housing officials and universities. While working at Village Gardens, I also completed a 16-month leadership fellowship created in partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Creative Leadership focused on bringing Fortune 500 executive leadership training to the nonprofit sector.

Most importantly, I am an active and enthusiastic member of our Ridgefield community. I run a local business, I volunteer in our schools, I’ve coached youth soccer (go Thunder Sisters) and taught kids how to plant food in their backyards. I love Ridgefield, and I love what we have the potential to become when we all work together to help each other to succeed. I want to help lead us there.

From this week's Reflector, https://www.thereflector.com/stories/election-2023-school-board-seats,328360