Ambassadors
We are so honored to have this group of dedicated volunteers working to share the love and mission of Red Oaks. Take some time to learn more about them!
Become a Red Oaks Ambassador!
What does a Red Oaks Ambassador do?
Ambassadors are our boots on the ground and our eyes and ears in our community. Our mission is to foster a deep and lasting connection to nature and community through exploration, education, and play. By adding your voice to the conversations, we are better equipped to reach more people and helping us be accessible to all.
Some things we invite Ambassadors to do include:
Join in on monthly in-person and zoom meetings to discuss what is happening in Red Oaks and where we are going!
Volunteer at fundraisers, informational booths in the community, assist with free programming, clean up days, and other opportunities to spread the word about our work.
Share your experiences on social media and with your community.
What do Ambassadors receive for their service?
Dive deeper into our work and learn more about non-profit operations
Contribute your thoughts, experiences, and ideas to help make this organization even better
Exclusive access to special thank you events
The feel good of knowing you are helping to advance unique nature-immersive opportunities for all in our state, region, and county
Priority invitations to join the Board
Featured bio on our Ambassador’s page to demonstrate your commitment
A t-shirt of your choice to help spread the love
We want to hear your ideas and we would love to have you help us spread the word about the work we are doing. Will you join us? Email us at info@redoaksforestschool.org to get more involved today!
Amy Richardson
Amy was born and raised Eastern Kentucky. She grew up running through the hills of the Daniel Boone National Forest with cousins and walking barefoot through her parents’ garden, letting her imagination run wild. Her love of stories led her to earn a bachelor’s in English from Morehead State University and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Spalding University. She has worked for many years as a college-level English instructor, but her heart keeps pulling her back into the forest. She didn’t realize how valuable her childhood spent in the woods and creeks near her home really was until she had children of her own.
After living in Oklahoma for several years, Amy and her husband moved back home to Kentucky in 2014 to his family farm in Carter County to raise their children on the land, and begin their venture with organic farming and agroforestry. It is very important to them that their children connect with the land and appreciate where their food comes from, and what better way than to grow up on a farm? She found Red Oaks when looking for other families who shared her love of nature and wished to inspire future generations through time spent in creative pursuits outdoors. She has completed teacher-training programs through Project WILD, Project Learning Tree, and Focus on Forests, and she is elated for the opportunity to share her passion with others and to continue learning as she farms, forages, writes, and homeschools.
Stephanie Fritz
Stephanie spent many childhood hours playing in the woods, pretending she was Sam from My Side of the Mountain or Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins. Through most of her life, she has returned to nature to reconnect and find peace.
After teaching in both Nashville and New York City, she now teaches her own children. While working to help her son meet his needs, she found her family spending more and more hours immersed in nature. Days spent outside, hiking, foraging, or just playing, were days full of a quiet joy not found in more traditional settings.
This led to family backpacking trips, exploring the Appalachian Trail and other trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Their highest daily mileage was 12 miles with her then 3, 5, and 7 year olds. They’ve hiked and explored 18 national parks. In winter, they spend time as a family snowboarding and skiing as yet another way to spend hours outside. Stephanie’s most recent pursuit, rock climbing, means if you need to find her, she’s probably somewhere deep in the Red River Gorge.
Megan Crawford
Megan grew up in Illinois, just outside Chicago, and one of her earliest and favorite memories were the trips she took with her two cousins and their grandparents to the Mississippi Palisades. Every summer they’d spend a couple weeks camping in an RV, spending virtually all of the time outdoors, climbing around in creeks and the woods. They learned to navigate the forest on their own and trust themselves and their bodies. To her, five words that describe Red Oaks are: peaceful, awakening, freedom, challenging, alive.
Megan is a homeschooling mom to her two children and runs a small side business as a Style Scout selling pre-loved clothing on Kidizen for local parents. She loves giving outgrown clothes a second life! Megan is also a Kentucky Master Naturalist. In her spare time, she enjoys learning hand-lettering techniques, creating tinker kits for her kids, and enthusiastically researching new homeschool resources. In the past, Megan helped start the first indoor public market in Pittsburgh and ran the only all-organic farmers market there. She also spent some years working on an organic farm! She brings valuable organizational skills to Red Oaks.
Curtis Rogers
Curtis has always stood in awe of creeks, trees, snakes, and box turtles. He was born and raised in Kentucky and has been hiking and camping in The Red River Gorge since he was a child.
After graduating high school, Curtis moved to Haiti for a year where he worked for a non-profit in the rural Northwest of the country. After college, Curtis and his wife moved to Haiti full time, where they lived and worked for three and a half years. In 2011, Curtis moved back to Kentucky from Haiti and earned an MA in International Development from The University of Kentucky’s Patterson School. His daughter Eva was born in 2012 and he and his wife Danielle immediately began taking her camping, hiking, fishing, and paddling. While in graduate school Curtis worked with The Carter Center, a non-profit in Atlanta led by former President Jimmy Carter, where he had the opportunity to travel to Mozambique to observe presidential elections and promote free and fair elections. Though he ultimately left the non-profit world, he continues to look for ways to engage with his community. In 2018 his son, Benjamin, was born and in 2021 Curtis graduated with an MBA from The University of Kentucky. He currently works for a large electrical contractor in Lexington where he is spearheading electric vehicle charging infrastructure and renewable energy projects.
Curtis volunteers with The Woodhill Community Center in Lexington as a mentor to a young man and the leader of a program focusing on getting children outdoors. He is also on the Education, DEI, and Outreach committee of The Red River Gorge Climbers’ Coalition. Curtis is driven by the understanding that his upbringing was one of privilege and that many children, whether in Haiti or Kentucky, don’t get the chances that he had to spend time in the natural world with adults who believe in and support them.
He is most at peace when he is hiking, camping, climbing, biking, reading, or canoeing with his family.
*Photo credit Lila Callie
Russ turpin
Reflecting on his early years, Russ appreciates his “free-range childhood” with access to play in nature, time to explore greenways, and neighborhood kids running in packs. Adventure was only a short bike ride away. While growing up inspired by the beauty and wonder of East Tennessee, Russ also learned to recognize the health and safety warnings along creeks and waterways. Russ knew from an early age that his life would have to address some of the legacy issues his parents, grandparents, and hometown community had a role in creating.
For the past 19 years, Russ has been involved with Lexington ecological projects through conception, design, installation, stewardship, and community engagement. As an ISA Certified Arborist and licensed Commercial Pesticide Operator and Applicator,he develops native planting plans as well as oversees post-construction and invasive species management programs. As a graduate from the Kentucky Professional Environmental Educator Certification Course, Russ conducts educational programs and stakeholder participation events to engage the community with his projects. Russ helped establish a local branch of Wild Ones (a nation-wide education and advocacy organization supporting native plants and ecological landscaping) and served as the Lexington chapter’s first president. With a personal commitment to local water quality and community sustainability initiatives, he offers technical assistance and voluntary service for community food forests, stream buffers, rain gardens, and other “green” stormwater practices. Russ has been appointed to serve as a representative on the LFUCG Stormwater Stakeholder Advisory Committee and the LFUCG Greenspace Commission to advise local government on environmental initiatives.