Our Team
Meet the folks behind Not Far From The Tree!
Our community is made up of a staff team, a Steering Committee, Pick Leaders, Fruit Pickers, Tree Registrants, Storage Partners, Community Agencies, every person who engages with our program by donating or spreading the word…and every tree that we work with!
Staff Team
Nat Karpovskaia (they/them)
Program Manager
Get in touch: nat@notfarfromthetree.org
I wear many hats at the Picking Program, including event planning, volunteer training, community outreach, feedback gathering and implementation, social media and communications, and more!
While a first-gen Russian immigrant, I’ve called Coast Salish territories home for most of my life, and have been in Tkaronto for the past few years. When not under a fruit tree, I have a knitting project on the go, a veggie garden to tend to, community organizing project to contribute to, and a new canning recipe to test!
One of my dreams for the future of NFFTT is to steward a public orchard that we can also use as a space for for growing, teaching, and learning.
My favourite fruit is definitely serviceberries, but I most enjoy picking mulberries (I can’t keep a straight face when I hear the *plunk plunk* as they fall onto a tarp).
Steering Committee
Not Far From The Tree is guided by a volunteer Steering Committee and is supported by committees focusing on program development and fundraising.
Madelaine Emberson (she/her)
Steering Committee Chair
Madelaine is the head of social impact at Range, a $3.5 billion North American travel organization. In her role, she leads all elements of CSR including charitable partnerships, impact reporting, stakeholder engagement, and fundraising to support organizations tackling poverty alleviation, and environmental exploration and conservation.
She holds a BCom in Entrepreneurial Management, and a Graduate Diploma in Social Responsibility & Sustainability. She is the Chair of the Steering Committee, has volunteered at the dog shelter of the Etobicoke Humane Society, and backpacked around East Africa volunteering with NGOs in Kenya and Uganda.
Favourite fruit:
Erik Benneter (he/him)
Steering Committee Member
Erik is an I.S.A. Certified Arborist, Ontario Certified Arborist, and Certified Tree Risk Assessor with more than a decade of forestry experience. As District Manager of Davey Tree Expert Co. of Canada, he is responsible for residential tree care operations across the city of Toronto, managing a team of 25 tree climbers, groundspeople, plant healthcare technicians and more.
Erik is a graduate from McGill University, majoring in human geography and G.I.S. He cares deeply about enriching Toronto’s urban orchard by lending his technical, industry, and leadership skills to furthering the mission of NFFTT.
Favourite fruit to pick: mulberry
Ryan Frigault
Steering Committee Member
Ryan Frigault (he/him) is a public service professional with extensive experience in project management, policy development and grant program design. He has held a variety of senior positions across several ministries in the Ontario Public Service and helped implement major strategic priorities ranging from emergency benefit payments during the pandemic to transformative, government-wide, IT projects.
Ryan went on his first pick as a volunteer in 2011 and so was inspired by NFFTT’s mission: “to pick fruit that would otherwise go to waste and share it” that he became a Pick Leader in 2015; shuttling fruit and picking equipment across the downtown core riding those iconic cargo bikes. Later in 2023, he was invited to join the Steering Committee where he contributes on matters related to strategy, grant proposals, and policy.
“I am excited and energized by the actions of NFFTT, its generous supporters, partners and volunteers, who are all helping to shape a future in which Toronto’s stock of fruit trees are renewed, cared for, and recognized as a low-cost, decentralized, community-oriented food source.” In his leisure time, Ryan is an avid gardener and aspires to, one day, have a stand of Serviceberry trees in his front yard.
Favourite fruit to pick and eat: apples!
Ali Abbas (he/him)
Steering Committee Member
Ali is a technologist and operations leader with 10+ years of experience driving large-scale transformation. As a coach and guide, he supports high-performing leaders and creatives in aligning their professional output with their deeper life’s work—ensuring balance with the demands of being a human being.
Ali’s approach facilitates both individual and collective awareness, bridging the gap between theories of cultural development and the daily realities of ethical leadership.
Favourite fruity recipe:
Fallon Butler (she/her)
Steering Committee Member
Fallon Butler is a strategic leader and social innovator with 20 years of experience driving growth within Toronto’s non-profit sector. A CivicAction DiverseCity Fellow alumna, Fallon has held senior leadership roles at some of the city’s most significant cultural landmarks, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Aga Khan Museum, where she specialized in scaling fundraising operations and organizational capacity.
Having experienced food insecurity growing up in Toronto, Fallon is deeply moved by NFFTT’s commitment to community-based environmental change. She holds a Master’s in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership and has dedicated much of her volunteer time to helping small non-profits and emerging social entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of start-up strategy. Fallon is proud to be rooted in Toronto, bridging her fundraising mastery with her passion for sustainable, resilient urban food systems.
Favourite fruit:
Anne Lemesurier
Steering Committee Member
Bio coming soon.
Favourite fruit:
Niya Bajaj (she/her)
Steering Committee Member
Niya is a best selling author, Champion of Mental Health, award winning mentor, and philanthropist who founded the Food Security Giving Circle at the Toronto Foundation. She is a former restaurateur, and food policy/strategy researcher and brings her insights about food as a key social determinant of health to her work as an internationally certified holistic yoga therapist, and narrative medicine facilitator. She has a delivered hundreds of customized wellness-centred leadership learning experiences at organizations including Accenture, Brookfield Investments, CapGemini, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto. Her ideas have been featured in the Toronto Star, New York Times, Forbes, Yoga Therapy Today, the Ethnic Aisle, and the book “Are We Friends or Coworkers?”.
Outside of her corporate wellbeing work she has held governance roles at the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto, the Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women and continues to supports women through challenges with body image, burnout, boundaries and the big life shift (menopause) in her private practice at Holistic Yoga Therapy.
Favourite fruit to pick: sweet cherries (ideally sweetheart or van, but they’re all delicious). They’re in season just before my birthday which means I always have my favourite – a black forest ice cream cake – to celebrate.
Reem Dabbous
Steering Committee Member
Bio coming soon.
Favourite fruit:
Walter Sisti
Steering Committee Member
Bio coming soon.
Favourite fruit:
MakeWay
Not Far From The Tree is a project on MakeWay‘s shared platform, which provides operational support, governance, and charitable expertise for change makers. The shared platform enables more time and money to go towards achieving greater impact.
MakeWay is a national charity that builds partnerships and solutions to help nature and communities thrive together. With the shared platform, MakeWay projects benefit from the support of a mission-aligned community, charitable expertise, and shared administrative resources including: governance, compliance, financial management, human resources, risk management and grants administration. MakeWay has full fiduciary and governance responsibility for Not Far From The Tree.