We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rachel Kline. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rachel below.

Rachel, appreciate you joining us today. Day to day the world can seem like a tough place, but there’s also so much kindness in the world and we think talking about that kindness helps spread it and make the world a nicer, kinder place. Can you share a story of a time when someone did something really kind for you?

Ever since I have known her, my mentor, Claudia Spurill, has been showing me kindness, extending me a hand, asking me how I want to grow and then doing everything in her power to help me get there. She has always reminded me to show up as I am, to be who I am. For anyone who deals with imposter syndrome, introversion, or is still discovering who they are like me, having a constant cheerleader is invaluable. It’s wonderful to have goals to work towards and get your flowers down the line, but don’t forget to celebrate who you are now, too. I carry those words and that encouragement with me everywhere. I get a similar feeling of kindness when anyone gives me patience, grace, and time. I need patience to learn, I need grace to feel comfortable, and I need time to heal and grow into my own. Nothing is more impactful than receiving this care and learning that it is okay to embody all of these emotional spaces at once or at all. I have been shown these kindnesses in my personal and professional life, and without fail I come out on the other side of a difficult time or situation feeling better in myself and more confident in my work. I’m easily hung up on the negatives and stressors. I’ve been re-learning to center my focus on gratitude. Doing so injects a brightness and ease into my day that I’ve been missing for a while. Learning to be kinder to myself is also a pretty revolutionary feeling.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Rachel Kline, and I am the Director of Community Outreach at the Seeds of Change Organization (SOCO) in Richmond, Virginia. We are a non-profit whose primary focus is running the Biggs Road Community Garden in Southside Richmond. Our goal is to empower neighbors in low-access and low-income communities to pursue health, self-reliance, and community involvement through urban agricultural practices and environmental education. We highly value health, inclusivity, endless learning, resourcefulness, collaboration, and listening to the voices of the people. I’ll talk more about how I got involved with the organization later. As for my day-to-day responsibilities, I am in charge of scheduling our garden events, heading up social media accounts, and alongside the Executive Director Claudia, we run all of our events together. Events usually fall into two main categories: Gardening Days and Community Cleanup Days. Gardening Days are times we set aside to tackle anything that needs doing, such as building a compost station, winterizing garden beds, building a greenhouse, or installing solar-powered drip irrigation (these are all projects we have accomplished in the past 2 years!). However, we also host events that are designed to give back to our community. For example, right now we are planning a Back to Basics Drive and Giveaway. This is a Seeds of Change Org tradition where we gather hygiene supplies and donations, package them into kits, and distribute them to children and families who may be starting off the school year without everything they need. This year, in addition to the giveaway, we will be hosting a variety of different community organizations at the garden as well. Students and their families are invited out to pick up a kit and stop by to learn how to register to vote, to take a yoga lesson in the garden, or to learn what goes into organic composting. Anything related to wellness of the community and to the soul is valued at SOCO. I am very proud of the work our team has done to get this event off of the ground so far. While there are a lot of challenges that come with having such a small team, I do love how fluid each of our roles are. I prefer to work behind the scenes, but I can be the face of an event if need be, and Claudia can step in for me when needed as well. It’s wonderful. For more information on our organization, I would highly recommend checking out Claudia Spurill’s article, right here on CanvasRebel!
Although I love the garden and the work that comes with it, I am involved on a volunteer basis. Professionally, I am an Air Quality Monitoring Specialist for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. I review and submit data concerning criteria air pollutant data and air toxics data for the state to the EPA. Myself and other members of the Data Team also have the privilege of traveling around and performing audits on sampling equipment at air monitoring sites across every state region. I have been in my current role for less than a year, and this is my first full-time job post-grad. Coming out of college, I knew I wanted to secure a job in my field and in my home state. The usual pathways in the environmental field are outdoor education, non-profit work, environmental consulting, and government work (at any level of government). Not really knowing what specific type of work within the vast field of environmentalism I wanted to step into first was overwhelming. I started applying for state jobs first, as I thought getting my foot in the door at a state agency would provide me with the most connections and well-rounded training for a long career in the field. I love the work I do and the people I get to work with. I feel a great sense of responsibility to provide accurate, timely, and transparent data to the public regarding air quality. Anyone who spent the summer of 2023 in the US can tell you that right now, air quality is one of the biggest public health concerns we face as the multiplying effects of climate change become more obvious and challenging to address. Needless to say, it was a very busy summer to start working in the field of air quality. But that fast paced environment and need for creative problem solving is exciting and motivating. By far, the biggest challenge I have faced since coming into this role is filling the shoes of my predecessor. As I’m sure is common for my fellow young professionals joining the workforce, I replaced someone who held their role for a very long time (a third of a decade). There is a large knowledge gap that I am trying to infill, so I have had to hit the ground running, trying to learn as much as I can every day. The majority of the part-time jobs I held in college were all data entry and review focused, and even though I enjoy and excel in data analyst-type roles, I do not want to pigeon-hole myself into a one-dimensional employee so early in my career. To avoid this, I spend time with people in my office who are outside of my team that have different roles than I do, like instrumentation techs and air monitoring site operators. I am learning how to build motors, how to do purchasing at a state agency, and how to set up and run community meetings. This has been an excellent way to find out what other interests I may have while also building upon my set of marketable and transferable skills. I am most proud of the fun and energetic attitude I bring to the office, and my attempts to pull the state into the 21st century. I am so grateful to get to do this work and serve the Commonwealth, while also satisfying my interests in environmental justice and public health. I know my time spent at the garden helped me land this position, and having experience with a dynamic and public-facing working atmosphere was an invaluable skill to bring to the interview conference table.
In school, I worked to set myself up for success later on. I obtained both my BS and Master of Environmental Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, ultimately graduating in the Fall of 2022. I decided to attend graduate school and pursue a higher degree in the same field as my undergraduate studies because I loved the subject matter, loved being a student, and knew that if I wanted to be financially independent in my chosen field, a master’s degree was necessary. I was on the board of the Epsilon Eta academic fraternity, serving as the Secretary; Ep Eta is the first nationwide, environmentally focused fraternity in the US. When I joined, it was as a member of the founding class at my college. We cropped up in the early days of Covid lockdown and were relegated to sitting behind screens for chapter meetings and to solo volunteer activities when we did go out to practice land stewardship in our communities, but being surrounded by people from so many different majors who all shared a passion for the environment was so invigorating. I didn’t mind starting behind a screen if it meant that we could still share our love for the work and the world. Being the Secretary forced me to step way outside of my zone, organizing and running meetings, making outside connections with established community organizations for volunteer opportunities, and having to manage not just my time, but everybody else’s. I learned how to address big groups of people, the importance of organization, and just how much a well-written email can do for you. This also translated into my work as a Teaching Assistant. I was a TA for a literature course and an environmental science course in undergrad and was a Graduate Teaching Assistant for a geology course later on. Through this type of work I realized again and again that I love to occupy that teacher role. I may not want to stand up at the head of class and instruct, but being able to be a resource to anyone, shy or outgoing, knowledgeable or a newbie to the content, brings me so much joy. After my first semester of being a TA, I gave every single student in my class an individualized handwritten note detailing how proud I was of their progress and thanking them for letting me be part of their day. It was corny, but the fact that I had even wanted to take that time and write those cards showed me that I need to continue to explore what it means to be a teacher and a mentor and a community resource. I was so proud of the relationships I had built with faculty and students, and especially being a TA in that literature course, getting to flex a muscle outside of the world of environmental science was so fun! It was refreshing to use a different part of my brain and get to examine topics through lenses outside of my typical subject matter. Be multidimensional and stay true to what drives you. While all of these experiences were great and fulfilling, I felt that I was still missing something: spontaneity and fun. Coming into such a large university gave me crippling anxiety, and I wasn’t able to have the typical college freshman experience because I held myself back. So, on a whim, I signed up for Alternative Spring Break (ASB). This organization is entirely student run and exists to connect college students with service opportunities that will take place over spring break. You express interest in participating, fill out a form about your interests, and get matched with one of the many trips taking place that year. The biggest caveat is that, by design, you do not know anybody else going on your trip. You are meant to be placed with a group of people with no existing relationship. For a terrified 19 year old, I was so proud of myself for even going to the interest meeting, let alone actually following through. I participated in this program for three different years with three different groups of people and made some of the strongest professional and personal relationships I have to date. I volunteered at an environmental law-focused non-profit in Wilmington, North Carolina, with National Park Rangers at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park in California, and at a non-profit in Nashville, Tennessee that focuses on promoting girls’ participation in STEM+ and in traditionally male-dominated sports. It was from these trips that I learned what it truly means to serve a community, how powerful human connection is, and how appreciative people can be when you just show up and put in work. I also renewed my interest in traveling, something that I realized I wanted to be incorporated into any future job I held. Throughout my time in college, I just tried to push my personal envelope a tiny bit every day, and I am so proud of the person I am today, because I am proud of the person I was on those pushing days. My life today is a product of that incremental, excruciatingly hard work. I see how the world has rewarded me with kind people and wonderful opportunities to put back into the soil what I have reaped. I will never take that for granted.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I can’t lie, when I first came onto the Seeds of Change Organization scene, I found the social media to be lacking a little bit. I blame this on having a small team who have outside full-time jobs, and not at all on a lack of trying or effort. It was like the progress bar was 65% full. A few key pieces were already in place, though, which made things much easier down the road. We were needing a revamp, not a reconstruction. So, yes, there were accounts for the organization set up on most of the big social media platforms, but they weren’t posted on very frequently, some didn’t have a lot of engagement, and the graphics just needed some TLC to appeal to the growing population interested in sustainability and environmentalism. SOCO also had a logo already designed, another huge plus. Where I came in was getting us on a regular posting schedule, a regular posting style, and encouraging engagement. Being predictable and dependable, especially for such a small organization just trying to get their footing again, proved to be invaluable. We saw weekly engagement increase on our most popular social media platform (Instagram), and eventually that transformed into higher in-person volunteer attendants at community garden events. I would advise those looking to build a social media presence to get to know their audience and leverage that to your desired goal. For example, our garden is located in the City of Richmond, Virginia. Richmond is unique in the fact that the RVA sub on Reddit is very engaging. In 2022, the Census population estimate for Richmond was just under 229,000. The RVA subreddit currently has 138K members. That means 3 out of every 5 people in the city are connected on this one platform, on this one specific channel, and we were not a part of it! Seeing this stat drove me to create a Reddit account for SOCO immediately, adding another profile to our social media network, and vastly expanding our reach. The desired effect of having a Reddit account was to establish and solidify a large, consistent, diverse volunteer pool. It has absolutely paid off! On this same note, I have found it helpful to have one account on each major social media platform. By regularly posting similar content on each of these channels, we are reaching different types of audiences and building our connections. So, get to know your neighborhood, town, or city! Maybe people really connect on private Facebook groups or have an already established Nextdoor community that you should tap into. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I also acquired a free Canva Pro account for SOCO so we could have fun, dynamic graphics to accompany our event promos and give our social media content an eye-catching quality that was previously lacking. I have found that in our case, people are most likely to engage with content that has succinct, friendly but professional wording, and playful yet simplistic graphic design. The final tip I have is to connect with existing brands, organizations, and businesses who are already established in your desired field. See how they engage with their audiences, request informational interviews with their social media staff, and ask to be added to their newsletters or included in shoutouts. One of the best ways to build an audience and a reliable audience of your own is to capitalize on existing traffic from related, trustworthy organizations. This paves the way for future connections and even potential collaborations.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I was 20 years old, and I was in my first semester of grad school, pursuing my Master of Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). A requirement of the program is spending at least two semesters at a relevant internship and/or independent study. I was beyond shy and had no desire or wherewithal to network. That word alone, “network”, just made my shiver. I was cripplingly shy and had no desire or wherewithal to network. That word alone made my shiver. Luckily, at the time I was taking a course with Dr. John Jones on Urban Food Systems. This course walked us through the inception and long-standing history of systemic food insecurity in the United States. Prior to this course, I was familiar with basic concepts like food deserts and food swamps, but nothing more. This class changed everything. It felt like every silo-ed bit of knowledge I had acquired throughout my collegiate career thus far had all been sorted into a timeline or even a food web, showing me how this housing policy led to that economic downturn which contributed to this environmental and environmental injustice issue, all of which had a contributing influence on shaping modern-day American cities and towns, leading some populations to be much better situated on the food security scale than others. Even though I had always had an innate connection with the natural world and a quiet but strong desire to be a helper, a mover, I never had a specific interest within that “environmental” umbrella that drove me. And then here I am, learning about the culture that bred environmental injustice, food insecurity, and all the intersecting issues that drive and shape these issues, and it just felt so obvious that I wanted to dive deeper. Dr. Jones introduced me to Claudia Spurill, the Founder and Executive Director of the Seeds of Change Organization (SOCO), a non-profit dedicated to environmental education and self-reliance through urban agricultural practices. He told me she was running a community garden in Richmond and suggested we connect. We arranged to meet at the Biggs Road Community Garden, which SOCO founded, funded, and ran. I was so excited, but so incredibly nervous, so I asked (made) my older brother drive me and attend the event with me. He and I spent that cold spring morning chatting over the garden beds, showing them love and preparing them for the spring seedlings that would soon need to be planted. Back then, I had no green thumb outside of houseplants, and had no knowledge of how to nurture a whole garden for a whole growing season for a whole community to enjoy. Instead of being disappointed that the shiny new grad student was a complete newbie, this excited Claudia. The teacher in her just naturally came out, and I sat and listened and learned. Her kindness and willingness to just meet me where I was left me wanting to return to the garden. Later that year I reached out and asked if I could intern at SOCO and the garden, wanting to gain experience at a non-profit, in urban agriculture, and in environmental education. And Claudia agreed. What I thought would be a single semester-long internship turned into a three-year partnership that is still going strong. After I graduated in 2022, I was officially brought onto the SOCO board as the Director of Community Outreach. The land that the garden sits on and the people it brings together are two of the most beautiful and pure pieces of my life, and their ability to move and drive me will not ever leave my soul.

Contact Info:

• Website: socogrows.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socogrows/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seedsofchangeorganization
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seeds-of-change-organization/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SOCOGrows
• Other: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/SeedsofChangeOrg

Image Credits
Photo #1 by James “Jake” Kline, photos #2-4 by me (Rachel Kline), photo #5 by Rebecca “Becky” Kline, photos # 6-7 by Kyle Johnson, photo #8 by Shelita Gaskins,