Our Team
Lisa Grele Barrie, Executive Director
Lisa began digging in as a volunteer since the Farm’s inception, and is passionate about sustaining this very special urban green space around the corner from her home. Her professional background encompasses over 40 years of sales, marketing and nonprofit management and she leverages all three daily to keep the Farm growing. She helped develop and lead the Farm's "New Season of Stewardship" strategy in 2020 that resulted in robust growth in plants, people and profit as well as the "Future Farms Plan & Fund" in 2024 to ensure a sustainable future. Her love of gardening was handed down by her father and blossomed after two years living in England. Lisa was certified as an NC State Extension Master Gardener Volunteer of Wake County in 2022 and is inspired and humbled by the plant world.
Maria Williford, Co-Farm Manager
Maria joined our team in 2021 and brings joy and passion to our nonprofit urban farm. As she digs into the farm manager role, she’ll be drawing from her deep-rooted experiences in social entrepreneurship, design/build, and permaculture.
She believes our community’s biggest resource in times of crisis are our neighbors. Maria has dedicated her career to growing businesses that empower people and protect their access to our most vital resources: clean water, land, food, and air.
She is excited to use her landscape, natural building, and management experiences to help grow the mission of Raleigh City Farm. Maria believes the farm is a place where the transformative power of being connected to the soil can be seeded and flourish — one person and one plant at a time.
Colleen Yeager, Co-Farm Manager
Colleen is a sustainable-minded farmer who gets excited about taking care of and coexisting with the basic ingredients that our community needs to survive: plants, soil, water and insects. She finds solace in growing food using regenerative practices that are good for the earth and for her people. As a mother, wife, and daughter, she is a tireless advocate for working together to restore nature’s balance.
Anton Fatula, Program Coordinator
Anton discovered a love of food and farming while studying environmental science at Penn State University. Since graduating Anton has worked at regenerative farms, gardens, kitchens and as a food systems organizer/educator in their home state of Pennsylvania and across Europe. Joining the team in Spring 2025, they are excited to dig in with the Raleigh community and join RCF as a program coordinator.
Establishing a community that includes the natural world teaches us, among many wonderful things, how to trust and communicate with one another. Anton has seen in their own life how food and farms can ignite these relationships and they are motivated to make these spaces as accessible and inviting as possible.
Peyton Purvis, CEFS Apprentice
Peyton joined the Raleigh City Farm team as an intern in the fall of 2021. It was during that time when she first discovered her passion for sustainable agriculture and local food systems. Her internship played a large part in her decision to study Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at NC State University. Now, Peyton returns to RCF as a CEFS (Center for Environmental Farming Systems) Apprentice after graduating from NC State to continue growing her knowledge and skill. She is passionate about supporting local communities by growing food that nourishes the body in a sustainable manner. Specifically, she is excited about the intersection of growing food and cooking meals to share with one another over the dinner table. Peyton believes the farm is a place where everything is connected: community, health, wellness, and flourishing plants!