​MEET BOWSPRIT

Our Team

We are forming a cohort of educators, farmers, and mentors, located in and around the former Elwell Farm in Unity, Maine, where this new association provides the foundation of our project. More on our farmer-partners and mentors can be found in the Mentors section of the website.
After two decades of farming, life-sharing, and living in intentional communities, Graziella Cervi and Peter Brady are passionate about making a life out of their vision: helping the next generation discover genuine community. Both work as program coordinators, Graziella is the current Executive Director, and Peter has recently joined the Board of Directors.

Our History

Bowsprit was founded by Graziella Cervi and Peter Brady, who together have decades of experience in youth mentorship, farming, and intentional- community living. Their experience includes working with at-risk youth, and life-sharing with special needs adults and the elderly. As committed advocates for strong communities, Cervi and Brady are deeply connected to local and regional farming and crafting, and have access to local masters who care about giving back to their neighbors. After many painstaking years of searching for the right piece of land; working through a difficult business partnership which nevertheless found the original investors; an amazing gift which enabled the farm property to be transferred from investor-holding to non-profit land trust status; Bowsprit Foundation will embrace a three-fold approach to land-stewardship - economy, culture, community.

OUR FOUNDATION

Bowsprit's Vision

The foundation of our work at Bowsprit is the biodynamic farm; working toward the long-term goal involved in the renewal of the farm landscape into a vital, productive, resilient, and diversified, closed-system farm. Biodynamic agriculture is about bringing healing to a damaged environment, encouraging honest and open observation of the natural world, and providing the tools to help us bring our food production practices further into balance.
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For us, biodynamic agriculture is very much concerned with the relationships between people, recognizing our connections to each other, and working to build new ones. Through such work, community thrives. Sharing the fundamental work of raising food with others allows for and cultivates meaningful life experiences that we each can learn from.

Who is it more necessary to share these experiences with, than young people on the brink of adulthood, looking for authentic ways to engage with their world? Young people, now more than ever, need something to do that is important and practical. Bowsprit fosters an environment that enables youth to better understand their capacities, their interests, and their own self-worth, and possibly even glimpse a hint of their purpose in life!

​Our Foundation creates a seasonal forum where young people, craft-masters, and farmers, learn from each other through shared experience, contributing to the rejuvenation of our local community. The farm at Bowsprit Foundation is a multiple-operator farm organization, providing livelihoods for farmers, and educational opportunities for local youth. ​

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Frank Pitcher

Deer Isle, Maine

Frank is a studio potter, sculptor, craftsman, and carpenter, living in Deer Isle, Maine. He also spends his time in gardens and a small orchard that he shares with his partner, Brinna Davis. He spent time in the Vermont mountains at Johnson State College getting his BA in Art. From there, the fields of Iowa lured Frank out to the University of Iowa, where he received his MA/MFA in Ceramics. For several years he remained in Iowa City, where he learned his trade as a carpenter. The fall colors called to him, so a return to New England found him in southern Maine, where he became involved with Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. He served on the board there for 20 plus years. The next move was to Deer Isle, where Frank was offered the job of assistant director at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. He was employed at Haystack for 11 years before moving on to open Pitcher/Masters Studio Gallery. One last sidestep finds him happily picking apples and making pots in his new studio on a quiet little corner 5 miles outside of Deer Isle village.

Jedediah Kreigel

Belfast, Maine

John Z. Steed

Deer Isle, Maine

John is a lawyer in Stonington, Maine. His legal practice focuses on helping the powerless assert their rights against the powerful, primarily through consumer protection laws. John grew up in foster care and is committed to Bowsprit's mission of helping young people struggling at the margins. Outside of work John dabbles in herbalism, poker, theater, and music.

Peter Brady

Montville, Maine

Peter may work mostly as an arborist these days, but for much of his adult life he has been farming and will be able to do so again soon. While finishing a dual degree in Environmental Studies and International Development at the University of Vermont, he had his first summer apprenticeship at Hidden Valley Farm in Whitefield, Maine in 1989. Since then, Peter has worked on a number of farms and intentional communities in the United States and in Ireland. Much of that time centered around living and working at Camphill Kimberton Hills in PA, the Fellowship Community and Camphill Village Copake in NY.
Peter has now co-founded this farm and skills initiative at Bowsprit along with his wife Graziella, and daughter Sunniva. 

Daniel MacPhee

Palermo, Maine 

Daniel is a farmer, a father and an educator—and can’t ever seem to separate those roles. He has applied his passion for experiential, community-based programming, peer-to-peer education and mentorship throughout New England in settings ranging from urban public schools, to city government, community farms, and public and private colleges—including 4 years as the Director of Educational Programs for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Daniel raises seed crops, perennials and grafted nursery stock along with his partner and two kids at Blackbird Rise, their certified organic farm in Palermo, Maine. Daniel also works off-farm part-time as a STEM Education Specialist facilitating out-of-school programming with the Maine Math and Science Alliance and manages a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NE-SARE) initiative to strengthen the social sustainability of family farmers in ME-NY-MA.