our team
farmer & farm owner & berry picker
Robert Zamora Phillips is a first generation Mexican-American farmer, business owner, avid forager, forest lover, and Prairie dweller. An overall rad-tad human. He is not about making foraging the priority but does love to take the journey and collect the berries. It’s not about the forage, It’s about the journey. and there happens to be a lot of berries and mushrooms that you can and can’t eat so he got educated and found out. HE found that by putting nature at the forefront, your life and world is full of blossoms. Robert is patchwork’s longest standing employee and a worker turned owner. his love and dedication for patchwork farms is endlessly flowing.
alyssa alcordo (she/they)
farmer & farm coordinator & flower fairy
Alyssa is a first-generation Filipina/Egyptian farmer with over seven years of experience growing food and community. Rooted in food sovereignty, land access, and collective care, she organizes with the Northern Illinois Young Farmers Coalition and is guided by reciprocity, interconnection, a rejection of hyper-individualism.
Alyssa finds peace in patchwork— the vibrant & accessible food, deep relationships, reclaimed land, and reimagined community. a lover of healing plants, people, and practices—with dreams of growing and sharing fields and fields full of flowers.
dani kosover ayala (they/she)
farmer & event coordinator & community cultivator
Dani is a queer Jewish farmer, artist, and ritualist of mixed Mexican, Eastern European, and Western Asian descent. As a lifelong student and activist, they bring years of experience as land steward in an urban setting, and are deeply committed to honoring the lifeways of their ancestors and the original peoples of Turtle Island. Her work centers on bridging the gaps between the body and earth, and evoking the Divine through land-based healing practices. Dani is also a passionate advocate for food sovereignty and healing through relationship with land, culture, and community. Through food, music, ritual, storytelling, and organizing, she works to imagine diasporic futures that prioritize community care, solidarity, and collective liberation.
patrick baranovskis (all pronouns)
farmer & youth coordinator & compost comrade
Patrick has been apart of Patchwork since Spring 2024 and is overjoyed to be apart of such an incredible project. They are a lover of all that uplifts Life and the liberation of all beings from the forces of private property, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. Their interests include anarchism, revolutionary peasant history, restoration agriculture, and music. At Patchwork they are an everyday farm hand and help with developing more youth engagement, agroecological practices, community outreach, the perennial nursery, a community compost program, and mycology lab.