NEWBURGH, N.Y. – The Newburgh Urban Food and Farm Initiative will celebrate SUNY Orange’s Likkia Moody and Monty Vacura, along with Mount St. Mary College professor Dr. Rob Wakeman, during its Let’s Gather and Grow fundraising event planned from 6 to 8 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 8 at Pamela’s on the Hudson in Newburgh.

NUFFI is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to build a just and resilient food system that improves the environment and health of the community in the City of Newburgh. By providing assistance to residents in building community gardens and offering youth education and employment programs, informative workshops, and volunteer opportunities at the Downing Park Urban Farm, NUFFI empowers residents to take ownership of their own lives, health, and community.

“The leadership that Likkia, Monty and Rob have demonstrated has helped propel our mission forward, and we are grateful for their ongoing support,” said Virginia Kasinki, executive director of NUFFI. “They have done so much to advance sustainable agriculture and food access initiatives in the Newburgh community.”

“The College values its partnership with NUFFI and many other organizations in the City of Newburgh. NUFFI is doing great things and I’m proud of the collaborations Likkia and Monty have worked on to strengthen our relationship with NUFFI,” said Dr. Kristine Young, SUNY Orange president. “I thank NUFFI for honoring Likkia and Monty, and congratulate Dr. Wakeman on his fine work with NUFFI as well.”

Moody has been a member of the Newburgh Food Project Taskforce since its inception, and has been a tireless advocate for food security and access to healthy food for Newburgh residents, especially SUNY Orange students and their families. She has served as the director of the College’s Newburgh campus since 2017. She manages the daily operations of the campus by coordinating the delivery of all academic, administrative and student services. She guides campus-based programs and services as well as assisting in the development and implementation of a long-range plan for the campus. During her first five years at the College, while serving as director of student services, she engineered the development of one-stop student service centers on both campuses and streamlined student support processes.

She has co-led the College’s most recent strategic planning steering committee in 2019-20 and co-chaired a Middle States Reaffirmation Working Group. She is an ex-officio member of the College’s Committee for Institutional Diversity and Equity (CIDE) as well as its Planning & Budgeting for Institutional Effectiveness (PBIE) Committee. Moody is institutional representative for the New York ACE Women's Network and Board member for Safe Harbors on the Hudson.

Vacura also serves on the Newburgh Food Project Taskforce. Recognizing the importance of personal connection with farms and food, he has taken his students to learn and volunteer on farms throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley, including the Downing Park Urban Farm. Wakeman, an English professor at Mount Saint Mary College, has incorporated local and cultural food into his classes for several years. Besides volunteering countless hours on the Farm, he and his students helped develop NUFFI’s 2024 wall calendar, a beautiful and informational planting calendar that the organization sells to support its programming and operations.

Vacura, who received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010, began his tenure at SUNY Orange in 2003 and teaches many of the College’s introductory biology courses, bringing him into contact with a wide variety of students. He has developed online field labs for the department’s Study of Biological Habitat course. Not long into his tenure, he completed a comprehensive catalog of all plants on the Middletown campus and within its greenhouses. He was also instrumental in developing the College’s Educational Gardens, a cooperative outdoor garden project between Cornell Cooperative Extension and SUNY Orange that is located adjacent to Hudson Hall on the Middletown campus.

More recently, he has been actively involved in developing horticulture courses focusing on cannabis cultivation, in support of SUNY Orange’s leadership role in the Hudson Valley Educational and Workforce Consortium. The consortium is comprised of six Hudson Valley community colleges that are implementing a $1 million state grant to support the growing cannabis industry. Additionally, he has led the College’s development of a newly approved cannabis cultivation microcredential by creating coursework, coordinating partnerships, establishing internships, overseeing greenhouse upgrades and tending directly to the plants.

Tickets for the event are $175 per person and supporting sponsorships are available.