About Marcia

My mother always surrounded our family of four with houseplants and wildflowers from the front porch of our two-bedroom apartment. As a child, I would listen as my mom would serenade each plant as she did to me each night. She told me that the plants could feel the vibrations of her soft hums and dance joyously to her every note.

Now, at 22 years old, I realize that my mother instilled that same love and passion for the earth within me. Born and raised in the Natural State, it was fairly easy to immerse myself in nature. I was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from Vilonia High School as Vilonia Citizen of the Year. My senior year of high school, I applied to colleges across the United States, but felt most at home at Hendrix College in Conway.

My freshman year of college I began to volunteer at Bell Urban Farm, a flower farm located in Conway, Arkansas. The owner of Bell Urban Farm, and now mentor and friend who I admire deeply, Kim Doughty-McCannon, handed me a pair of shears which, unbeknownst to the both of us, changed my life. Working on an urban farm for four years allowed me to watch the growth of a community project impact the whole state of Arkansas, giving farmers and vendors a place to showcase not only their products, but their identity. The rewarding lessons of community gardening and farming taught me that agriculture is more than a Southern buzzword; it is life and love.

As someone who has struggled with mental health conditions for most of my life, I found hope with my hands in the ground by feeling the coolness of the minerals and dirt that now permanently live under my fingernails. Forging my own way as a first generation college student from a low-income family, I sought out every opportunity to forge my own community and witness how nature itself can be a healing force.

Spending my college years pruning and harvesting, I declared my major in Environmental Studies. Four years later, I graduated from Hendrix College with my Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with Distinction, and presented my senior thesis on green space access as related to mental health. I also served as an executive for the Campus Sustainability Fund and Environmental Concerns Committee, and was selected as a Murphy Literature and Language Scholar as well as a Miller Service Scholar with Distinction in Odyssey.

Further, I was selected as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow where I will embark on a year-long independent journey to five different countries to carry out a passion project. Through my project “Cultivating Connections: Community Gardens as Ecotherapy”, I will explore the therapeutic qualities of communal gardens to understand their social, psychological, and economic benefits, specifically in underserved communities.

I am a sister to my younger brother, Warren, a daughter to Jessica Williams, and a granddaughter to Lynda and Warren Williams.

I am also an advocate, a traveler, a reader, an avid journaler, a cat mom of two boys, a wine and coffee enthusiast, an enjoyer of all things food, and a friend to the most supportive people I know.