by Christine Wolkin and Len Lear

When the Mt. Airy Learning Tree (MALT) Board of Directors needed a new executive director, it needed to look no further than its beehives. “The organization and I have grown up here together,” said Stephanie Elsan Bruneau, who instructed MALT’s beekeeping course prior to her new position.

The 40-year-old Mt. Airy native, author and current resident was tapped in early July as the organization’s executive director. After 10 years, the former executive director, the indefatigable Judy Weinstein, has moved on to new ventures. “The board set out to find a leader with a strong commitment to community and the energy and vision to build upon MALT’s successes,” the board wrote in a statement. “Stephanie is that leader, bringing tremendous energy, enthusiasm and creativity to her work. She is a proven community leader, with experience in community building and education.”

Stephanie remembers growing up with MALT, when her mother led support groups for women with eating disorders. Additionally, her father took harmonica classes through MALT to help ease him into retirement.

"I am thrilled to be able to take my passion for community to MALT,” she said. “It is a true honor to join an organization that I have admired for years and that in my mind truly exemplifies ‘community.’”

As an adult, Stephanie decided to become both an instructor and student at MALT, taking a beginners course in Salsa dancing in addition to beekeeping. “It was so fun to dance together and get to know each other as neighbors in this setting. I have experienced first-hand the way that MALT courses build community, bringing together our diverse community through common interests.”

Stephanie's professional background is in community education and sustainable development; she received a master’s degree in sustainable community planning from Brown University in 2006. Most recently she worked at Weavers Way Co-op, where she labored in outreach and community engagement as the co-op’s programs coordinator. “I am a firm believer in the power of co-operative enterprise, and you'll still find me in line at the co-op doing my shopping,” she said.

Stephanie went to Miquon School as a child, which inspired in her a true love of nature. She went to Friends Select High School and Wesleyan University (2000) before going to Brown. She and her husband, Emile, the head of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School, moved back to Mt. Airy to raise their family — daughter Clara, 6, who goes to the Miquon School and “loves the Miquon mud as much as I did,” and son Atticus, 4.

“I grew up in Mt. Airy,” Stephanie told us in an interview last year, “and I am so pleased to be back in Northwest Philly. We started our family in Boston and moved down here with our bees and kids in the spring of 2015 so we could raise our children in this diverse, progressive community and so the kids could grow up playing in the Wissahickon, attending Miquon School and having a strong relationship with my parents, who still live in Mt. Airy.”

Stephanie is also the author of “The Benevolent Bee: Capture the Bounty of the Hive through Science, History, Home Remedies and Craft!” which was published last year.

The importance of honeybees for the food supply of human beings cannot possibly be overestimated, her book insists. The diet of bees is flower-based, collecting pollen and nectar from the flower, and much of our own diet is flower-based in the fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables we eat that the bees pollinate. In recent years the degradation of the environment has decimated large bee populations, which could ultimately threaten the very survival of the human species.

In upcoming years, Stephanie is looking forward to continuing to grow MALT to even new heights. “I'm particularly interested in making sure that all members of our community can engage in our courses, regardless of their financial position; expanding our reach beyond Mt. Airy, reaching deeper into Germantown and Roxborough; and developing new and exciting programming that reflects the ever evolving interests of our communities at all age groups.”

Founded in 1980, MALT celebrates the diversity of Northwest Philadelphia, bringing together neighbors to share a wide variety of ideas, information and skills in informal learning environments. The organization now offers about 300 courses three times a year, in the fall, winter and spring.

For more information, call 215-843-6333 or www.mtairylearningtree.org