Craig Lapine is the founder and executive director of Cultivating Community. Cultivating Community grows sustainable communities by expanding access to healthy, local food; by empowering youth and adults to play diverse roles in restoring a local, sustainable food system; and by modeling, teaching, and advocating for ecological food production.Since 2001 Cultivating Community has run programs that use a food justice lens to build leadership, civic engagement, and environmental ethics among teens. It supports garden-based education for elementary and middle school students throughout southern Maine. The organization leads and administers the City of Portland’s community garden network and operates a network of farm-stands across four of Maine’s five largest cities (Portland, South Portland, Lewiston, and Auburn) that are accessible to customers using SNAP and WIC benefits. Cultivating Community offers a Citizen Gardener Workshop Series to create and empower home and community gardeners, and its New American Sustainable Agriculture Project (NASAP) is Maine’s largest land-based farmer training program.
Craig serves on Portland's Parks Commission. He is on the network team for Food Solutions New England—the UNH-based entity that convenes New England’s annual Food Summit and that published the New England Food Vision. He also currently holds seats on the Portland Food Council and the Cumberland County Food Security Coalition. He is a past president of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and past chair and treasurer of Maine’s Eat Local Foods Coalition.