Meet the tiny Farm team
Carolyn Lewis — Founder
Carolyn is a true serial entrepreneur. Her ventures include a career in sales and hospitality, starting and successfully selling an executive search firm in New York City, opening a restaurant in Krakow, Poland, and starting Locals, which is the first collective wine tasting room in California. As the Locals business matured, Carolyn’s entrepreneurial vision has not diminished and after many years of volunteering with organizations that support the homeless in her community, her desire to work with those less fortunate led to the creation of Your Tiny Farm.
Tim Hylas — Board Member
Tim is a board member and the financial advisor to our non-profit while occasionally also being pressed into service on the farm. He has an extensive background in accounting, a very big heart, and cares deeply about those living without shelter in our community.
Mary Frances Ruffatto — Farm Manager
Mary began her love affair with the earth and all its glory at a very young age...by tasting it of course! Born in San Pablo, CA in the Fall of '57, and raised in Vallejo, CA, Mary cultivated her gardening skills working alongside her mother in their family garden, and honed them at her grandmother's farm in Kansas each August. Weeding and turning soil proved a perfect outlet for exercising her body while calming any restlessness or tension she experienced being the eldest girl in a family of five children, and a relentless high achiever in school. She has always nurtured some type of garden wherever she goes; currently turning her interest to weaving wildflowers, reeds and grasses into ornamental garden art. She is also exploring bending bamboo and reeds into arches and structures. A lover of wild crafting and naturalized outdoor spaces, she views life as a garden, and a garden as art.
Mary received a BA in Movement Education, minoring in English, from Dominican University of San Rafael. She also completed the requirements for a certificate in Juveniles in the Justice System at SRJC, and completed several art and graphic design classes at Contra Costa College and SRJC.
