In her spare time, Samantha Catland wrangles chickens and a 9-year-old boy in between canning, baking and gardening. On the clock, she coordinates youth and kitchen programs at the North Alabama Agriplex, the local non-profit dedicated to preserving and sharing the region’ s agricultural heritage.
With the Agriplex’ s new 8,525 square foot community hub, Catland’ s role is expanding as the new facilities kitchen coordinator. At the Agriplex, she is in her element. It’ s not just a job, it’ s her life.
The 37-year-old earned a Bachelors in Family, Youth and Community Sciences and a Masters in Sustainable Design from the University of Florida, but her real life experience came from her travels around the globe.
She took her degrees to Boston, Massachusetts, but after just a year of intense jobs and long commutes, she and her husband, Daniel, sold everything and traveled for a year, splitting their time between New Zealand to work on farms and vineyards and Puerto Rico to host an AirBnB and run a Greek food truck. But home beckoned. The desire to grow their family brought them back to New England, but after the birth of their son, Oscar, they decided to move closer to her parents and sister, who had moved to Alabama to work at UAB.
“ We initially came here temporarily, but nine years later, here we are, and don’ t have any plans to leave,” she said.
The Catlands live on a 3-acre homestead in Hayden with their dog, cat, seven chickens and Samantha’ s parents next door.
“ We love being right in between Cullman and Birmingham and enjoy what both cities have to offer,” she said.
Catland joined the Agriplex in August 2022 as public youth programs educator. She had signed her son up for Garden Camp and was mesmerized by the facility.“ From the very first day I stepped foot on the property, I knew this place was something special. As luck would have it, they were hiring just a few months later,” she said.“ Working here has been better than I could have imagined. I have an incredible boss and couldn’ t ask for a better leader for our team. Executive Director Rachel Dawsey has given me the freedom to grow into each role while also providing guidance and constant support for new ideas and dreams.”
“ Everyone that knows me always says this job was‘ made’ for me. Everyday, I get to interact with people of all ages who share my passions: growing and cooking food, enjoying and protecting nature, and learning new skills. I truly wake up excited about my work and I see myself being at the Agriplex for a very long time.”
— SAMANTHA CATLAND
In 2023, after deciding to homeschool her son, she transitioned from school-based to on-site public youth programming. Now, she oversees both youth and kitchen programs.
“ We were excited to hire someone with so much garden experience, great with kids, creative with social media, and all around creativity,” Dawsey said.“ Since that time, Samantha has transitioned to our youth public programming, our internal graphic designer, head of our fundraising auctions, and now our newly hired kitchen coordinator.
Catland’ s responsibilities include developing cooking curriculum for all ages, creating safety, maintenance and cleaning protocols, learning and implementing ways to reduce kitchen waste, testing recipes that are both tasty and teachable,“ and spreading the word to families that the Agriplex now offers not only classes on how to grow food, but also how to enjoy it at the table,” she said.
Catland will continue all her other tasks as she assumes this new role.“ That is one special thing about
Samantha— she can accomplish so much in a small amount of time,” Dawsey said.“ Her graphic design on our T-shirts, our event posters and all other media is extremely professional and I really don’ t think we could hire an outside professional to do such great work. We are so excited that Samantha found the Agriplex when she was looking for summer camps for Oscar.”
Samantha Catland reads‘ The Three Pigs’ by David Wiesner— a version of the classic‘ The
Three Little Pigs,’ during the North Alabama
Agriplex‘ Pink: Pigs’ Little Farmers program. Enjoying the reading are Bentley Loyd, 5, left, and Riggs Chop, 3, both of Fairview.
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