Faye Sofranko
President
Farm Educator at Friends of Zenger Farm
Faye brings deep roots and experienced entrepreneurship to the many community-focused roles she’s played along her journey toward decolonized food systems, including the launch of the Local Artisan Collective in St. Petersburg, Florida, to encourage local small businesses to cross-promote each other.
Raised in St. Petersburg, she called the city home until moving to Eugene in 2022. During her time in St. Pete, she explored culturally-diverse foods and blended that curiosity with her passion for canning and farming – bringing both to the community to connect people and places for the greater good.
Faye earned multiple Best of the Bay Awards in the Tampa Bay area, as well as national press, upon founding and operating The Urban Canning Co. The brick-and-mortar location sold her jams, pickles, beer mustards, and ferments and offered space to share her love of good food and education about natural food preservation. Today, Faye focuses on her love for teaching, using her collective experience to make tangible change in her community.
About six years of working in multiple departments for Mountain Rose Herbs and finding a home in Human Resources has given me so much insight into the importance of cultivating and maintaining relationships with the land and people to dismantle barriers. With those barriers dismantled, whether they're geographic or communications based, we can create thriving communities and reduce overall waste.
Aside from this work, Christie is very passionate about performing arts and music in general.
Sonya moved to the Willamette Valley in 2018 after studying environmental horticulture and quickly immersed herself in the local agricultural community. Over the past several years, she has worked on a variety of small farms throughout the valley, deepening her connection to regional food systems and the resilient people who sustain them.
She currently works behind the scenes at the Lane County Farmers Market, coordinating USDA-funded grant programs that support farmers and vendors through customer education, value-added production, and expanded market access. Her role also includes grant writing, expense tracking, and program administration—skills that she brings to her service on the board of directors at WFFC.
Outside of her food systems work, Sonya is also a professional tattoo artist at a local studio in downtown Eugene, where she explores creativity and community through a different medium. In her free time, she enjoys backpacking, yoga, and mushroom foraging in the lush outdoor spaces that Oregon offers.