The secret to how Plant Futures began
Today, I want to share a story most people in our community have never heard. It begins with a mentor, a rainy afternoon, and a question that changed everything.
A few months ago, I nominated my graduate school mentor, Will Rosenzweig, for the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award. It's a national honor given to educators who inspire their former students to "create an organization which has demonstrably conferred a benefit on the community at large." Only about 150 professors have received it since 2010.
Will won.
Here's the backstory: When I started graduate school at UC Berkeley, I was so excited to study food justice and plant-centered food systems, but I had no idea how to start creating a life or career around those convictions. I wasn't able to find the education or career support I wanted. I was frustrated and doubted whether I should have gone to graduate school at all. I didn't have a map.
Then I met Will, and everything changed. I was enrolled in his course "Edible Education,"
and on a rainy Berkeley day I trekked to his office hours (I almost didn't go) to talk about my class project. I shared my frustration with the lack of plant-based education at Berkeley. Will asked me, "Well, why don't you start something?"
Will said yes to an idea with no track record: a course on plant-centered food systems that didn't exist yet, at a school that had never taught anything like it. It turned out that Brittany Sartor, who would soon become my co-founder, was developing a similar idea around the same time. Will connected me with Brittany; with Nina Gheihman, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley who had just completed her Harvard PhD on how veganism went mainstream; and with Jordan Bennett, an MBA student with a drive for a plant-based world. With the support of Will, Brittany, Nina, and Jordan, we created Plant Futures, UC Berkeley's first experiential learning course on the plant-centered food systems transition.
Five hundred students signed up before a single course review existed to justify it. That was the signal that we were onto something. Students from around the world, including Eric Sirvinskas (who would become one of our co-founders), emailed asking if they could audit the course.
That class then grew to become the Plant Futures Initiative, a nonprofit and global student movement that has since reached over 250,000 students across 115 universities in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and India.
I also want to be honest about the other side of this story. When I started, many people told me it wouldn't work, and some actively discouraged me from doing it. When you're starting something new, something that challenges the status quo, there will always be resistance. That didn't stop me. It gave me more motivation to keep going, because Will believed in me, in my co-founders, and in our mission, and I knew we had found something worth growing. That support is what got us through everything that came after, and what helped Plant Futures become what it is today.
We celebrated Will at the award ceremony in Atlanta this past weekend, and I couldn't be more grateful to be the one who got to nominate him.
None of us grow meaningful work alone. We do it because someone believed in us first. If you're still looking for your Will, keep showing up to office hours, even on the rainy days. And if you already have one, maybe this is your sign to tell them what they made possible for you. Thank you, Will, for changing my life!
With gratitude,
Samantha
Support Student-led Change
Interested in partnering, enrolling, or donating? Reach out to us — we’d love to connect!
