You’re likely to find Tom Skeele hiking, climbing, scuba diving and otherwise enjoying nature. He’s been an avid outdoorsman since a childhood spent exploring Connecticut’s fields and forests. A veteran of environmental education, Skeele has helped guide a number of nonprofits over his 40-year career before joining MEarth as executive director this spring. Kids work in a garden, then pick produce and learn to cook. Skeele takes to heart the environmental nonprofit’s name, Me + Earth, and is passionate about the intersection of sustaining healthy people and planet.
Weekly: You held the glass pumpkin patch event last week. What’s your favorite way to eat a pumpkin?
I’m old-school. I like pumpkin pie, warmed like at Thanksgiving, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
How about your best tips for sustainable living?
First, remember there is no free lunch, that for every use of a natural resource, there is an ecological cost. Second, remember that we all live downstream from someone else. And vica versa. Each of us would do well to be mindful of our impact on the greater community, human and natural alike.
What’s your vision for MEarth?
To expand our reach to engage more youth, especially in underserved communities. We’re actively exploring ways to bring our programs to schools and communities in the county that need it most.
What can adults learn from the students?
Rachel Carson wrote about how all children have an innate sense of wonder, which is lost as we become adults. I think MEarth’s younger students can help adults reconnect with that sense of wonder. I know that happens to me when I see the kids here discover a new lizard or marvel at the patterns of a flower in the garden.