Speakers

Alrie Middlebrook, from the Rotary Club of San Jose, is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of California Native Garden Foundation (CNGF https://cngf.org/). She is currently involved with the teaching garden project with "A Living Library" (https://alivinglibrary.org/). Alrie is a committed advocate and practitioner of the sustainable lifestyle, a landscape professional, and a California native plant specialist. Under her guidance, CNGF has installed over 1,000 native, sustainable gardens in Northern California. She is also a spokesperson for the nature-based urban land use movement in San Jose.

 

She founded the Garden for Ghana Project and traveled nine times to work with schools and the local community to build teaching gardens in Yamoransa, Ghana. Currently, she is helping to fund an underserved school’s teaching garden filled with native Indian plants in Delhi, India.

She met Rod Diridon when he was a Santa Clara County Supervisor. She sought his advice and support for a San Jose maze chip garden, based on Bob Noyce’s early circuitry prototypes, that visitors would see in the Guadalupe River Park as they landed in San Jose. 

She is interested in the intersection of art, science, agriculture, and ecoliteracy as we collectively plan future land use in Santa Clara County. CNGF started this conversation as the Build 25 Initiative in 2017. 

Alrie, along with her partner of 33 years, Dr. Barry Slater, are proud of their wonderful, blended California family of 7 children and 15 grandchildren.