Create Plenty's mission is moving forward. Here's why:

Amy Chovnick has been an adjunct faculty at Las Positas Community College since 2004 where she teaches an ecology course called Humans and The Environment as well as Human Biology. She holds a Master of Science in Applied Molecular Biology and worked in the Biotech industry for over 18 years, first in research and later in business development. She is also a volunteer project leader for a local 4H club where youth under her direction are raising awareness (not animals) though a service learning environmental stewardship project. She likes to challenge people to think and then inspire them to take action. In her spare time she likes to discover new creative ways to repurpose the materials that enter her life, knit, foster kittens and dabble in making fun educational videos. She wants to open up a store that sells locally made goods and has many ideas for stories she wants to write, and inventions to make the world more sustainable.

Matthew Collins: I am currently a graduate student at Portland State University where I am working towards my Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy. I am specializing in Education for Sustainability. I also work for the Friends of Tryon Creek State Natural Area. For the past 9 months I have been working on developing an ecologically based service-learning program. Currently I am the Middle School Camp Director. In the fall I will continue working with the Friends in order to support and assess their many ecological education programs. Prior to my time at Tryon Creek and PSU I was living in Cincinnati, OH and working at the Cincinnati Nature Center. During my time with this organization I organized and led experiential education field trips in addition to, assisting with summer camps. I am excited to help develop Create Plenty in to a vibrant organization devoted to social change.

Cheryl Hall Franceschi has several years of professional experience in fund development, marketing, project management and finance in the nonprofit sector. She was drawn to a career in philanthropy because of its potential to mobilize people and resources that can engage concrete efforts to measurably improve our world. Cheryl is currently pondering strategies to create smart, sustainability earned income opportunities for the social profit organizations she's invested. Cheryl has a love for food, cooking, eating, and a geeky interest in researching and understanding food security and distribution channels. When not playing chauffeur, chef or strategic advisor to her three sons, she’s in the garden, hiking, kayaking or imagining new ways to re-purpose used things. Cheryl is happy to have landed in Portland, Oregon, a city with a long growing season, an obsession with good food and coffee that matches hers, and a social climate that embraces creativity and forward thinking. 

Morgan Lange: No one quite understood why, in college, I double-majored in Ecology and Spanish. At the time it wasn’t immediately obvious how I would find a future utilizing both. Now living most of the year in Merida, Yucatan, I am Create Plenty’s International Plastic Quilt Project coordinator in Mexico. I have found the Quilt Project to be ideal in many ways to achieve the goals of educating the public, involving them directly in taking action, blending the importance of each person’s individual voice with the power of the collective, and inspiring real and enduring change with regards to the consumption of goods and the subsequent production of waste. It has been a pleasure to take this project, combine it with classes on the basic principles of ecology, and spread the word in Mexico, where education and projects like this one are in short supply. I can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Cheryl Lohrmann was convinced she had to do something about the environment after planting a tree in 5th grade, having parents who gardened and did what they could to recycle, planned an herb garden in high school, noticed plastic bags flying through the winds of Chicago and wondered about the effectiveness of the Blue Bag system there, read Garbageland by Elizabeth Royte and Gone Tomorrow by Heather Rogers, moving to Portland to see that they still use a landfill. It took a lot of convincing over many years, but she eventually got that she had to start Leave No Plastic Behind to help others to recognize the alternatives to their patterns of hastily wasting a whole lot of material that paradoxically never goes away. In 2009 LNPB became Create Plenty and the International Plastic Quilt Project. She comes to Create Plenty with humility and hope after 5 years experience in the non-profit environmental and arts worlds.