About

Jenny Finn has designed structures that foster vitality in people, communities, and organizations for nearly 30 years.

She holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability Education and co-founded Springhouse Community School and Sourced Design.
Jenny Finn’s research, mentoring, and teaching invites people to deepen the relationship they have with themselves in order to serve the world with greater clarity, courage, compassion, and creativity. Her work has taken many forms including non-profit leadership, trauma and hospice care, chaplaincy, clinical private practice, community building through the expressive arts, and education. She sees education as a primary agent to create regenerative culture and is redesigning education in ways that foster the vitality within and around us all. Jenny lives on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband Andy and their two teenage children, Andrew and Lizzie, and loves taking walks on the country road everyday with her dog, Kevin.

Chris started at Springhouse in 2016 teaching math, then participating in The Well and leading coming-of-age programming before joining Springhouse full-time for 2018-2019 school year. He grew up in a Camphill community in Pennsylvania and attended the Kimberton Waldorf School. Before settling in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Roxanne (his wife), Chris received a B. Sc. in agricultural economics from McGill University, led canoe trips in the Canadian wilderness, taught English in the Republic of Georgia, and worked in food and farming in various places and capacities.

He is interested in social forms that can hold vulnerability, encourage authenticity and further wholeness. Chris is passionate about shape note singing and committed to service. Chris has also been known to enjoy gas station hotdogs and a good show on Netflix.

After realizing the limits of the US public education system, a structure that wasn’t built to support the creative work they were after, H left their 5-year teacher education program a year early, graduating with a degree in Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies with minors in Elementary Education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Upon receiving their diploma, they immediately left the town of their undergraduate university in pursuit of a new way of educating and learning - one that truly supports the potential and life in each individual. Now, after 6 years of immersion in and the co-creation of a vitality-centered learning environment, H is inspired to work alongside other educators yearning for something different - for an educational design in which ALL learners can thrive. H has worked with diverse populations of young learners both in the public school system and alternative educational settings. They have experienced the learning environments of “failing” schools - where three-quarters of the learner population receive free or reduced lunches - and schools in which learners speak over 50 different languages and have relocated from countries all over the globe. A queer, gender-noncomforming educator, H is committed to the decolonization of education and themselves and being a coconspirator. If you happen to catch H outside of Springhouse, they may be experimenting with film photography (hleopoldphotography.com), reading a Dean Koontz novel, or identifying trees.

Ian Stabler is an artist, woodworker, and natural builder from Denver, Colorado. In 2013, Ian graduated from Colorado College with a degree in Studio Art. He completed his Permaculture Design Certificate from Quail Springs later that year and spent the next two years as a natural building apprentice at Aprovecho Sustainability Institute in Cottage Grove, OR.

Ian has a deep appreciation for the natural world and humanity’s place within it and uses his art as an access point through which to delve deeper into our environment and himself. He loves farming, homesteading, and traveling. Ian believes that art in education can be as expansive as the learners who participate in it and believes in the potential for art to teach us depth within ourselves and the world.

Roxanne is a kinesthetic learner and values hands on learning and the importance of living connected to the land. She believes in the body's innate wisdom and the importance of healing touch, which can be a mirror of the unconditional love that resides in each of us. Roxanne is currently participating in several somatic trainings, one of which is Hakomi, a mindfulness body-centered healing modality that uses internal observation and somatic awareness to identify core narratives within ourselves. She is interested in how slowing down and turning inward can help us observe and become more conscious of how we move through our external environments. Roxanne is passionate about supporting others in cultivating resiliency in order to move towards challenge and growth.

Sarah moved to Floyd in 2017 to get involved with Springhouse’s adult programming and became a full-time staff member later that year. Sarah and her partner Ian recently completed construction on their hand-built home where they intend to live and grow together for the foreseeable future. She holds a bachelor's degree in Religion with a focus in Buddhism and Western philosophy from Colorado College. Sarah studied permaculture design at Quail Springs Permaculture, completed an 18-month sustainable agriculture fellowship with the Allegheny Mountain Institute in 2016; and worked in the field of garden-based education before coming to Springhouse. She is deeply committed to healthy human development and is passionate about creating regenerative communities, and recently completed a master’s degree in Ecological Design Thinking Master’s Program at Schumacher College, where she is loving meeting people from around the world and exploring where theory and practice meet.

Chuck lives in Twisp, Washington, close to his two grandchildren (of six) who live in the United States. After thirty years working in corporate management, leading large organizations such as Amana Refrigeration and small start-ups such as Breakthrough to Literacy, Chuck’s last six years have been focused on generative education, particularly effective literacy environments for children ages 3-11. Generative learning environments enable both the leaders and the learners to maintain their wholeness and agency. For more background on generative education see https://bit.ly/2LSAjz2
While also active in leadership positions in many community organizations such as United Way, chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, and Junior Achievement Chuck has focused on education with 10 years as chair of Foundations in Learning, 27 years on the Coe College Board of Trustees (3 as Chair), 26 years on the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business Board of Advisors, several years on the board of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa, and three years as the Chair of the Board of Advisors for the University of Iowa College of Education.