Ray Pultinas is Founding Director of James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center, an educational and charity 501c3 non-profit whose mission is to strive for project-based solutions at the juncture of food, environmental and social justice. JBOLC manages expansive permaculture garden spaces on or close to the DeWitt Clinton High School Campus in the Bronx (including Meg’s Garden and Edible Forest), operates the weekly JBOLC Garden Community Farmers Market from June through October, sponsors high school student internships and coordinates community volunteer programs, community events and multi-age environmental educational programming. Before retiring in 2017, Ray taught English for 25
amazing years at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx (James Baldwin’s Alma Mater) and has served as Sustainability Teacher, Sustainability Coordinator, Journalism Advisor and Witt Seminar Advisor, among other roles.
Ray cherishes his memories as a child of time spent on his uncle’s dairy farm in Cheshire, CT not far from where he grew up in Waterbury, CT. He remembers helping his grandmother pick from her strawberry field and being rewarded with jars of jam. His mother, raised on the same family farm, was an avid gardener who inspired his love for and knowledge of plants. Ray dreamed of traveling the country in a van taking and studying soil samples and entered the University of Connecticut in Storrs as a horticulture major, but eventually changed his major to English with a minor in Fine Arts (Printmaking). His passion for growing plants returned when he and his Witt Seminar students started the Clinton Garden in 2010. He loves the full spectrum of garden work from digging trenches to planting to pruning as well as long walks in the forest just to observe its beauty or forage for wild edibles. Among his current dreams is the realization of the Mosholu Teaching Forest - a 21 acre parcel of forested Mosholu Parkland across the parkway from De Witt Clinton that had been neglected and abused with trash dumping and smothering invasive vines. Every human being deserves the healing power of a nearby and thriving forest ecology to remind us of what truly matters to all of us - clean air, healthy living, and nature’s beauty. Furthermore, every plant, tree, animal and creature has the right to fulfill its lifecycle with respect, beauty and grace.