Amanda Delperdang

Executive Director, Mississippi Delta Learning Center, Greenville, MS

Amanda Delperdang is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Mississippi Delta Nature and Learning Center. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Utah State University, a Masters degree in Elementary Education and a Specialist degree in School Administration from Delta State University. She is an avid home gardener and has a Permaculture Design Certificate as well as being a Master Gardener of Washington County, MS. Amanda is an alum of the Rural School Leadership Academy and TFA Graduate Fellows at Delta State University. She taught art, 1st grade, and 3rd grade reading for a combined 9 years in the same school she was placed at back in 2013 through Teach For America. During this time she saw a need to get kids outside to promote health and well-being as well to gain a better understanding of the world around them.

After schools were shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was even more emphasis on kids learning from screens rather than hands-on experiences. These experiences led her and her husband to purchase 30 acres of unused land in the middle of Greenville, MS and begin the process of turning it into a space where children and their families can spend time outdoors engaged in meaningful play and learning experiences. Three years later they are about to open the nature center to offer family recreation, field trips, youth programming, and an AmeriCorps environmental stewardship program. She is passionate about sharing the benefits of nature with her community through access to healthy food, education about the importance of nature, and small and simple things we can all do to protect the environment.

The MDNLC provides hands-on educational experiences, job training, and community regenerative agriculture focused on native plants. Amanda’s project will launch a new Youth Growing Native Food program that will serve a new age group of students (14 – 16 years old), who live in food deserts. As part of the curriculum on environmental justice, youth will connect to nature and learn about food sources and history through immersive, hands-on education. They will grow, harvest, and market produce using regenerative practices that prioritize land stewardship and community well-being. Growing native plants like paw paws, black cherries, muscadine grapes, blueberries, and sunchokes not only provides healthy, accessible food options, it also allows the knowledge of the elders to be passed on to the next generation of Black youth, who will be at the forefront of reversing the negative effects of historical environmental injustice and food insecurity in Washington County, MS.