May 2026 MG Recognitions

By MGs Linda Barrett and Sreemoti Mukerjee Roy

We would like to recognize the volunteers in our Communications and Garden Educators Programs for sharing Montgomery County Master Gardener news through The Seed, publicizing our MCMG activities with county residents, keeping MGs personally connected through social events, and educating schoolchildren and others about gardening. 

MG Imane Zouhar is the Communications Program director. She has several projects under way, including preparation of the MCMG Annual Report and upcoming social events. Imane also spends time brainstorming ways to streamline communications within the organization and with our wider audience.

Newsletter

MG Alison Edwards is the general editor of The Seed. She plans newsletter issues, coordinates the collection, revision, approval, and presentation of news articles. Alison ensures that contents adhere to MCMG policy, and last year she led the modernization of our newsletter from a desktop-published product to an email-and-blog format. 

MG Intern Pela Soto began ably assisting with writing/coordinating, fact-checking, and editing newsletter stories in 2025. This has taken a load off of Alison's plate in the early segment of the production cycle, for which she is most grateful!

MGs Amy Henchey and Betsy Wooster take turns providing copy editing services for newsletter stories, often greatly improving the clarity, accuracy, and flow of submissions. Last year Betsy played a leading role in compiling the simplified MCMG Communications Style Guide.

MGs Len Friedman and Dean Evangelista locate or take photos to accompany newsletter stories, which enhances the storytelling. They have also been building an archive of photos ready for use in future projects. 

MGs Jon Davis and MG Intern Jenna Boig compile the online listing of upcoming Continuing Education opportunities each month in lockstep with the newsletter production schedule. They stepped into this role on short notice when the previous person had to bow out at the end of 2025, and they have ramped up quickly.

Public Relations

MGs LeeAnne Gelletly and Hilary Longo are Public Relations co-chairs. They create the MCMG brochures, calendars, flyers, business cards, and garden signs that we all find so helpful to pass out at events. Hilary also creates the MCMG Annual Report and explores new ways to help connect MCMGs with county residents. 

Social Events and Intern Hospitality

MGs Linda Barrett and Carol Kosary have been organizing social events such as the June MG picnic at Derwood, the Holiday Party, MG recognitions, and the Intern Job fair, which all involve a lot of  “volunteer wrangling.” Linda and Carol do so much to keep the MG community connected, but they give credit to all of the wonderful MG volunteers who really help to put all of these events together. MG Sue DeGraba took over Linda's role starting with the 2025 Holiday Party, which was a huge success.

Garden Educators

The Garden Educators program, led by two co-chairs, MGs Pam Hosimer and Carol Kosary (pictured in the previous section), aims to teach healthy eating lessons to schoolchildren. Pam is the University of Maryland Extension SNAP-Ed Educator. She has conducted school tours of the Derwood Demo Garden and visited classrooms to teach children about how food is grown. Pam has also expanded the Garden Educator program into other areas. Carol handles the logistics of recruiting and coordinating over 40 volunteers needed to host more than 500 first graders across six Demo Garden tours.