Lillie Hodges
Lillie Hodges graduated from Middlebury College with a focus in Geography and Global Health and is currently working as a Community Manager at RightPet, building community and content to help people find the right products and techniques to keep their animals happy and healthy. While in Vermont, Lillie worked at 1% for the Planet in its community development team. During her time there, she particularly enjoyed working on partner acquisition and engaging their global network of environmental non-profit organizations.
Lillie’s commitment to experience worlds beyond her own and to foster meaningful connections with people and organizations led her to work for the Aspen Institute in Colorado on their 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival team.
Additionally, she serves as a Vanguard Board Member for the Aspen Institute’s Society of Fellows and a Junior Council Advisor of the American Museum of Natural History. In 2018, she began working on a long-dreamed of personal project - Aspiring Roots. Aspiring Roots is my way of pairing my passion for food and creativity with the insights and lessons I’ve learned about nourishing recipes, self-love practices, and healing techniques.
3 words to describe Nature?
Centering. Alluring. Awe-inducing
3 things Nature taught you?
Perspective
Resilience
Peace
3 most treasured Nature spots?
More Mesa cliff trail, Santa Barbara CA
Roman Road in Grovely Wood, Wiltshire England
Jardin Publique, Bordeaux France
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
As if the waves can absorb any turbulence within me, challenged by the endless stretching horizon of possibilities, and ultimately relaxed and at peace with the moment.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Very small and young, and in awe of the resilience and energy within the vast organism of a forest.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Humbled by the earth's ability to both destroy and heal, and by my youth and smallness in that moment.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
A sense of opportunity to “reset” myself while feeling in sync with the natural world.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Fascinated, thrilled by the suggested risk and power, and reverent for the scale and depth of nature.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
As if it proves nature’s whims can overpower any of New York City’s hum.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean - The ocean is not only where I seek joy and solace, but also where I’ve learned some important lessons about myself. Overcoming the fear of being past the chaos of the breaking waves, I would spend hours there swimming, floating and jumping with those I love. There is a spot just past the waves where your toes can still barely touch the sand, and where each passing swell challenges the notion that I’m able to control my own destiny, or alone in my journey. In its vastness, it can hold your experience and all the others all at once - often leaving me and anyone I’m with with no idea of the passing time other than being carried down the beach in the current and tides.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10 - Growing up surrounded by it in Santa Barbara, nature was core to how I could reflect on my wellbeing and find purpose and peace. Now that I'm living in Brooklyn, I've brought the green to me - surrounding myself not only with plants at home and spending many hours in New York’s parks but also with my newest nature-loving family member - Simba, an adopted kitten.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
As an only child growing upon a horse ranch surrounded by an avocado orchard, I often had wondrous adventures climbing the tree trunks and suspended in the canopies - a source of indepence, satisfaction, and calm. Once, around age 10, I convinced my friend to help me build a ropes course by borrowing my mom’s riding reins and lead ropes. We learned some key lessons about planning and physics that day; and the tree swing, our most stubbornly knotted rope, remained until that part of the orchard was cut down after dying in the CA droughts.
Nathan Irons
Nathan Irons is a founding member of 1% For The Planet and the founder of Bluestone Life, a national insurance organization promoting change by inspiring people to align their values with their finances. Nathan was born and raised in Vermont. He served in the US Navy, is an avid reader and has a deep appreciation for how integrating family, community, and planetary health into decision-making can dramatically improve a family’s quality of life, and their positive impact. He has a long history of entrepreneurial activity in the financial services industry, and has increasingly gravitated toward business ideas and concepts that initiate systems change. Nathan lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
3 words to describe Nature?
Beautiful. Solemn. Interconnected
3 things Nature taught you?
Gratitude
Respect
Empathy
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Kauai
Vermont
Forests
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Alive and respectful
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Grounded
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Peaceful & Grateful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Depth and power
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like going outside
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountainous Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Spending an entire day playing with rocks in a Vermont brook that ran through a forest where tree roots reached into the water and I could smell the evergreens.
Kate Williams
KATE WILLIAMS is CEO of 1% for the Planet, a global movement inspiring businesses and individuals to support environmental nonprofit solutions, through annual membership and everyday actions. Kate stepped into her role at 1% for the Planet in May 2015 bringing a strong track record as a leader, including roles as Board Chair of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), as Executive Director of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, as founder and owner of a farm business enterprise, and as an elected political leader in her community.
Kate also brings a deep passion for and commitment to the power of collective action, which is at the core of 1% for the Planet’s model and approach. “When people come together across traditional boundaries to solve complex problems, they create stronger, more ethical, and more lasting solutions,” she says. “It is my best hope that I can lead by creating and supporting these kinds of powerful connections.”
Kate earned a BA at Princeton University where she majored in history, and an MS at the MIT Sloan School of Management where she focused on organizational systems. Kate is a master’s distance runner, kitchen gardener, and always wants more time to read and write.
Kate lives in Vermont with her husband and two children.
3 words to describe Nature?
Complex. Simple. Vital
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Strength
Patience
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Great Pond, Maine
Northern Wind River Range, Wyoming
San Pedro Park, New Mexico
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...
Small in a good way, and connected to things greater than myself and humans in general. I also feel curious about both the horizon and what is below the surface
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Small in a good way, alive, surrounded by wise elders
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
A little frightened, but also awestruck in a positive way
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
At peace and reminded to pause for beauty. Also a sense that while science can explain most things, even the colors in a sunset, it can’t explain the breathtaking feeling of seeing vast natural beauty.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
If I’m in a safe place, I feel curious and compelled to count between lightning strike and thunder boom. If I’m in the mountains, I feel duly respectful of the power and kick into risk management mode.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Very presently aware of the power of nature. I live at the dead end of a dirt road with a forested hill sloping up behind our home. When the wind blows, I feel both connected to those trees that bend but also sometimes fall in that wind.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I am a mountain person. I love nothing more than being in, looking at, hiking in, living in, finding beauty in mountains…. Mountains are what most fill my heart.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10. I’ve chosen to live in, work on behalf of, recreate in, and draw inspiration from nature. I find both peace and strength in nature, whether it’s in wilderness or in my kitchen garden.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Some of my earliest memories are of the lake in Maine where our family has a small cabin. I have memories of all seasons on the lake – skinny dipping on hot summer nights and skiing in the fading light as the frozen lake cracked and popped. While I have many specific memories, what I love about these early lake memories in general is how they incorporate every sense: I can taste the lake water on my lips as I dry off after a morning swim, smell the pine needles baking in the August sun near the rocky shore, feel the lichen rock under my toes before jumping into the deep, hear the waves pushing against the shore under a strong Northwest wind, and see the golden light of sunset reflecting on the underside of the leaves shading our cabin porch. I’m grateful to my parents for knowing the value of immersing us in nature as a central part of our childhood – it’s certainly shaped me.