Jack Kamps (they/them), Director of Farming

Jack grew up in Holland, Michigan in a family of teachers. After graduating from Calvin College in 2016 with a degree in Literature, Linguistics, and Classics, Jack worked many various and sundry things around Michigan, the Hudson Valley, and New Jersey (substitute teaching, barista-ing, youth pastoring, warehouse schlepping, and garden maintenance among them). Ever since a fall semester in southern Oregon introduced them to the complex world of small-scale regenerative agriculture, Jack itched to learn more. Jack attended Princeton Theological Seminary from 2021 to 2025, working and completing coursework at the seminary’s “Farminary,” as well as working and interning at other small-scale farms in the area—baking bread, milking cows, working markets and CSA pickups, butchering chickens, and harvesting, harvesting, harvesting. 

Jack has great love and admiration for young people and hopes to support each student who comes to Gideon’s Garden as they grow in self-knowledge (and maybe learn a thing or two about gardening along the way). Jack enjoys baking and cooking with their spouse, tries to enjoy and breathe through the frustration of learning new crafts, and is very likely to be listening to a tabletop actual play podcast while doing solo chores.

Contact Jack at gideonsgarden@graceberkshires.org

Rev. Jimmy Solano Pickett (he/him), Rector of Grace Church 

Rev. Jimmy felt a call to ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church while working as a college work-study student at a Foodbank Farm in midcoast Maine, Veggies For All. After several years of wandering around from field to field, he was recently called to be the priest of Grace Church in Great Barrington. During the summer of 2023, Jimmy served as the youth supervisor at Gideon’s Garden just after graduating from seminary.

Onions and Garlic hold a special place in his heart and he’s excited to get his hands back in the soil this summer.