Executive Director
Ellen Sims (she/they)
Ellen Sims was born as a white-bodied person on the ancestral lands of the Cherokee, S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), Shawandasse Tula (Shawanwaki/Shawnee), and Miccosukee people in what is called Tennessee in the United States.
Growing up, Ellen spent most of her free time playing with imagination in the woods and in the creek, scaling rock walls in her backyard, and building structures from materials found in the woods. Nature was and is the place where Ellen feels most at home. Nature is also part of what helped her heal from an acute case of an autoimmune disease.
Ellen has always had a curious spirit, a desire to explore lands, and a love of learning about the diversity of people’s lives. She spent time living in Oregon, North Carolina, and Washington State and also spent several years living in an RV in the U.S. and traveling internationally. She finally settled with her spouse and child in Teejop, the Four Lakes region of the Ho-Chunk Nation, called Madison, Wisconsin.
With a vision to care for the land, formal education in ecology, botanical medicine, bodywork, and arboriculture, and personal experience healing from chronic illness, Ellen is committed to supporting the collective effort needed for life-reconnection and land-based healing in these times.
Board of Directors
Chair of the Board, Amel Yacef (she/her)
Amel Yacef, an Algerian who made Ireland her home for over 20 years, describes her practice as transformative and compassionate justice. She has extensive experience in organizing and mobilizing young people, women and grass roots community leaders coming from communities marginalized by systems and institutions that were never built for them. Amel has managed and coordinated projects with a focus on social justice, racial justice, gender justice, equality and human rights.
She is passionate about facilitating processes that enable those voices in the margins to sit in their power, and impact political discourse, believing in the importance of creating and holding spaces of radical transformation and healing justice for the individuals and communities harmed by oppressive systems.
Treasurer of the Board, Gerry Slater (he/him)
Gerry grew up in a small town in West Central Minnesota, freely playing along the tree lined creek, the open fields and vacant lot. At art schools he studied Industrial Design and then at UW Madison, Environmental Design.
Along with being a parent and husband, Gerry serves as an environmental designer-educator to children’s programs, mostly early childhood education and care centers.
On his journey, Gerry has worked a variety of jobs, has taught design, started a nonprofit (Resources for Children), started and coordinated a small business manufacturing and installing furnishings and outdoor play structures-environments (frequently through leading community volunteer builders) and always doing planning and design.
With other early childhood educators, Gerry started the Wisconsin Nature Action Collaborative for Children assisting early childhood educators in their efforts to connect young children with the natural world.
He currently serves children’s programs and schools as Design4Kids through a process requiring active participation by teachers where they re-imagine outdoor play-learning and the physical settings to support the desired learning and development, with an emphasis on loving and bonding with the natural world and for both teachers and children engaging joyfully outdoors.
As a lifelong learner Gerry explores our interdependence as humans and as kin with all the other beings sharing this planet, and he seeks ways of being and acting to honor and nurture that interbeing.
Board of Advisors
Pam Boulton
Pam Boulton, Ed.D., is Child Care Director Emeritus after her 40-year tenure as the Director of the UW-Milwaukee Children’s Center. She is actively engaged with the World Forum Foundation Working Group on Children’s Rights and has been involved in the Wisconsin Nature Action Collaborative for Children. Pam continues to be a guiding force in the design, development and delivery of child care leadership courses, training programs and professional development opportunities.
“Leadership is not only a position, but also a way of being – a way of seeing the world – our world – the world of early childhood care and education. Leaders are found everywhere in our field, bringing vision, trust, and hope. Not just anybody can do this work we do – caring for and about our youngest children and their families. With absolute intentionality, we provide excellent early childhood experiences for children – filled with wonder, love, an expectation that each child is cherished, seen as capable and competent and is cared for and nurtured. We support and appreciate every teacher and other staff members. We value and assist our families and provide a foundation for our communities. As leaders, our passion sustains us, but it can wear thin. We need each other, relationships we can count on. We need to embrace the power of reflective practice and we need to nurture our own sense of wonder.”