About Culture’s Edge

Programs

Culture’s Edge delivers in-person and online educational programs through its School of Integrated Living (SOIL). Originally delivering programs in permaculture design and sustainable community development, our offerings expanded to include natural building, consensus governance, organic gardening, herbalism, compassionate communication, death and dying, and other topics related to our mission.

Board of Directors

Garrell Bevirt, President

Garrell is an artist, designer, dreamer and currently a student, practitioner, and teacher of yoga, meditation and tantra. Garrell is the operational and development director for Dancing Shiva where he lives, teaches and stewards the land. Dancing Shiva is a Tantra Monastery and Retreat Center within the Earthaven Ecovillage. Garrell is dedicated to offering folks tools and attitudes to balance inner and outer life. Garrell is excited and privileged to be a part of helping shift consciousness through meditation, movement, and connection to the vital nexus of nature.

Sam Ruark, Vice Chair of Business and Treasurer

Sam has been working in the field of sustainability for local governments, nonprofits, and small businesses since 1998. Sam’s first foray into the nonprofit world was working with the Harmony Project and the Sustainability Institute in Charleston, SC. There, he ran a building materials reuse center for affordable housing and a green building trade show. In 2000, he moved to the SF Bay area, where he worked as a Sustainability Planner for Marin County, CA. In 2005, he returned to North Carolina, lived in Celo Community, and organized the Green Festivals. In 2008, he returned to California to manage energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and programs for Sonoma County. Since 2015, he has been the Executive Director of Green Built Alliance. He has served on the Boards of Directors for four nonprofits. He lives with his family at Earthaven Ecovillage.

Debbie Lienhart, Secretary

Debbie is an engineer and maker who has lived at Earthaven Ecovillage since 2007. She has a lifelong passion for learning, including a BA in Geography, an MS in Computer Science, and an MA in Technical Communication. At Earthaven, she has been involved in governance, promotions, and partnership culture, and was a partner in the Useful Plants Nursery for eight years.  She was a board member of Organic Growers School and the Blue Ridge Horticultural Society. She is currently Board President of Cooperate WNC. She is applying her community radio experience to produce the Earthaven Ecovillage Podcast and drawing on her technical and management background to develop and promote Earthaven and SOIL’s programs.

Arjuna da Silva, Board Member, Culture’s Edge Co-founder

Arjuna co-founded Earthaven Ecovillage and Culture’s Edge in the mid-nineties, and has served on the Culture’s Edge board since then, often doubling as staff. She is a writer, editor, designer, and process-oriented educator, who celebrates having landed at Earthaven, helping to build a sustainable community and non-profit education center. She designed and helped build an amazing natural house, and is still evolving ideas and programs for The Natural Building School and other regenerative methods and tools.

Arjuna received a B.A. from The New School for Social Research and almost got an M.A. in Counseling from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her permaculture, natural building, and community self-governance understanding has been generously fed at Earthaven.

Greg Clark, CPA, Board Member, Culture’s Edge Co-founder

Greg has a diverse background that includes a Masters Degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco (1993) and a Masters Degree in Accountancy from Western Carolina University (2007). As a young adult he performed professionally for a couple of small modern dance companies in Columbus OH and went on to work as the Arts Program Officer for the Community Foundation of Santa Clara County in San Jose, CA. In 1996, he moved to North Carolina and first worked as the Executive Director of the Haywood County Arts Council. While a member and resident of Earthaven Ecovillage from 1996 through 2004, Greg co-founded Culture’s Edge as well as the Earthaven Forestry and Building Company LLC.  After nearly three years as a staff accountant with JPS, a mid-sized accounting firm in Asheville, Greg obtained his CPA license in North Carolina. Since leaving JPS in 2009, he has been working independently as a tax accountant and business advisor for many small businesses and nonprofits throughout the area. In 2021, he returned to Earthaven.

Paul Caron, Board Member

Paul was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and is the oldest of five children. He received a bachelors in both Philosophy and Religion from Michigan University. After spending seven years in a monastic order, he received the guidance to start an intentional community in the Asheville area. 15 years later, that vision manifested into the founding of what we now know as Earthaven Ecovillage. He owns and manages Furniture Magician, an off-the-grid cottage industry that runs out of Earthaven and has been teaching woodworking techniques for over 25 years. He is still an active member of Earthaven Ecovillage and has been serving on the Culture’s Edge board since 2005. Paul is a visionary, fine artist, small business owner, and lover of the hobby of burning candles.

Seraina Broadhead, Board Member

Seraina (Susan) grew up in the woods and fields of Western New York State. Her education was completed with a PhD in English Literature. She directed a nonprofit literary organization in Minnesota called the Loft, taking it from a small, mostly volunteer organization to a nationally recognized literary center. She left after 15 years to move to the mountains of Western North Carolina in 1994. For the next several years, she worked as a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts. At the same time, she started Goshen Timber Frames, a company that grew to national scope as a builder of timber frame homes. She retired in 2004 and has been a neighbor and Supporting Member of Earthaven since 2012.

Staff Directors

Greg Clark, CPA, Executive Director, Ecovillage Development Program Director

Greg has a diverse background that includes a Masters Degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco (1993) and a Masters Degree in Accountancy from Western Carolina University (2007). As a young adult he performed professionally for a couple of small modern dance companies in Columbus OH and went on to work as the Arts Program Officer for the Community Foundation of Santa Clara County in San Jose, CA. In 1996, he moved to North Carolina and first worked as the Executive Director of the Haywood County Arts Council. While a member and resident of Earthaven Ecovillage from 1996 through 2004, Greg co-founded Culture’s Edge as well as the Earthaven Forestry and Building Company LLC.  After nearly three years as a staff accountant with JPS, a mid-sized accounting firm in Asheville, Greg obtained his CPA license in North Carolina. Since leaving JPS in 2009, he has been working independently as a tax accountant and business advisor for many small businesses and nonprofits throughout the area. In 2021, he returned to Earthaven.

Amy Belanger, Development Director

Amy leads fundraising, public relations, and organizational development in support of the organization’s mission to catalyze regenerative culture. She is a co-creator of Culture’s Edge’s Innovation Fund, Earthaven’s Ecovillage Development Program, and the EarthShares 2.0 initiative, and is an active member of the racial equity task group, Celebrating Diversity at Earthaven. Amy brings over three decades of experience in environmental and social justice work, nonprofit development, and community-based organizing. Her professional background includes leading a successful multi-year campaign to stop federal offshore drilling off Florida’s coasts, raising over $2.5 million for conservation, growing a national green economy network, and co-founding the Green Party USA. She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage, where she is raising chickens, gardening, baking, deepening her psychospiritual growth, and restoring the Hobbit House following damage from Hurricane Helene.

Debbie Lienhart, Operations Director, Interim SOIL Program Director

Debbie is an engineer and maker who has lived at Earthaven Ecovillage since 2007. She has a lifelong passion for learning, including a BA in Geography, an MS in Computer Science, and an MA in Technical Communication. At Earthaven, she has been involved in governance, promotions, and partnership culture, and was a partner in the Useful Plants Nursery for eight years.  She was a board member of Organic Growers School and the Blue Ridge Horticultural Society. She is currently Board President of Cooperate WNC.