Why Mushrooms?
Collar City Mushrooms is one node in the great interconnected mycelial mat providing the substrate out of which is growing a movement that will impact the way we see the world. The fungi kingdom includes life forms that can offer nutrients, that include healthful medicinal properties, that can mycoremediate petroleum based wastes, that enrich and renew soils, that can induce mind altering spiritual growth, and that can be used as building materials, textiles, and biodegradable packaging. Understanding the mushroom and the way it interacts with its environment will help us save ourselves and the way we live.
Why Troy?
Like the intricate mycelial network of any flourishing fungal community, Troy supports, shares, and grows to encompass many disparate organisms, yet we are one Troy. Our businesses and neighborhoods have such unique character and strong inclusive communities. Creative and dedicated people live, work and thrive all throughout the city. There are so many opportunities for collaboration, cooperation, and participation. Avery has lived in Troy since 2013, and worked in Troy off and on since 2001. It is a city working towards bearing amazing fruit. Collar City Mushrooms is going to be a hub of connectivity between the many urban gardens, blossoming artists, and creative entrepreneurs making this city a wonderful place to enjoy.
Why Us?
The world of fungi draws so many to it, creating mutually beneficial relationships, inspiring life changes, and illustrating possible connections. The Collar City Mushrooms team has been drawn together from across the area, drawn by an interest in mushrooms and how they can benefit ourselves and society as a whole. We are a group that loves to create, to experiment, to laugh, to love, to enjoy new experiences, and to bring about change. Each one of us has jumped through hurdles, overcome challenges, and stepped up to the agar plate with determination. We are crazy about mushrooms, but we are also dedicated to building community and to serving tasty food and medicine to those who are interested. Mushrooms are the past, mushrooms are the present, and mushrooms will be the way of the future! The health benefits, the ecological benefits, and the societal benefits are just now beginning to be researched. We are excited to be riding this wave of discovery while bringing local fresh mushrooms to the capital region and beyond.
Avery Stempel
(Founder and Primary Pleurotus of Collar City Mushrooms)
Mushrooms have long occupied a place of mystery and intrigue at the fringes of my psyche. From watching Saturday morning cartoon smurfs frolic through their forests and playing Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo in the 80’s, to wandering the mountains of the catskills as a lumberjack in the 90’s, and now foraging the wildernesses of my local region and growing them myself, I have immersed myself in the world of the fungi at all stages of my life. The more I learn about them, the more the intrigue expands, and the deeper the mystery evolves. Our fungi kingdom neighbors are amazing life forms. They can be used to create packaging for shipping equipment, as tools to expand consciousness, and as bioremediators of environmentally toxic brown sites. They have also offered themselves up to be consumed as nourishing food and natural medicines. There are so many different kinds of mushrooms, each with their own special niche in how they interact with the environment and benefits that are reaped when they are consumed. Collar City Mushrooms is going to be growing and selling mushrooms for consumption, but also providing a space for people to become educated about the fantastic world of fungi. I hope you stop in and say hi.
Amy Hood
(Logistics and Reality Check)
From a very young age I was intrigued by mushrooms. Exploring local nature preserves I would take pictures of everything and return home to find out what they were. This spurred me to pick up all of the mushroom books I could find. Eventually I had the opportunity to grow shiitake mushrooms on hardwood logs in a friend’s forested plot in Knox, NY. It’s now been almost a decade and I’m still growing. Several years ago Avery and I met Ed Braley and we went on foraging adventures in the various forests around the Capital Region. These walks empowered me and gave me the courage to consume many of the mushrooms I’d been finding for years, but never harvesting. During the last few months, while the Coronavirus Crisis raged, I enjoyed expanding my mushroom cultivation knowledge even further with science exploration nights with Ian (our first lab mycelial engineer)and Avery. I’m looking forward to growing the mycelium even further as we become an indoor urban mushroom farm!
Peter J. Raponi
(Chief Financial Officer)
Growing up, my extent of mushroom knowledge was from Super Mario Brothers, you ate it and you got bigger. The end.
When walking around in the woods during my adolescent years, I knew that mushrooms grew in the wild and that half were poisonous and, with my luck, I was better off just leaving them alone.
Later on, I knew that portabellas were delicious when grilled. I had, quite frankly, very limited mushroom knowledge. This all changed when I met Avery.
And when Avery started talking about Collar City Mushrooms and the possibility of starting something that could impact our community and world in such profound ways, I needed to learn more. And I did just that. I dove into the world of mushrooms.
I foraged, cooked, and learned about mushrooms. I grew to understand the nutritional and medicinal properties of mushrooms (mostly thanks to Avery). Utilizing mushrooms for food, health, and energy made them a central part of my life. I never thought I would eat mushrooms instead of drinking a cup of coffee or taking a pill, but there are endless possibilities for which fungi can be used. It’s now my goal to share fungi’s gift with the community.
I was born and raised in Guilderland, NY and graduated from Siena College with a degree in Accounting. I am committed to the Capital District Region and aim to help the place where I grew grow further.
When offered the position of CFO, I knew I could not say no. I am excited for what the future has in store for Collar City Mushroom and for what Collar City can do for Troy, the state of New York, and beyond.
Nick Waunsch
(Mycelial Maestro)
I like Music and I like Mushrooms.
Sam Armour
(Lead Mushroom Travel Coordinator)
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Rebecca Rifenberg
(Dry Goods Production)
Rebecca enjoys making & eating vegan meals, drinking coffee, and finding time to sneak dark chocolate & exercise in to every day. She was drawn to Collar City Mushrooms’ family friendly atmosphere & looks forward to experimenting with incorporating more mushrooms into her baked goods.
Collar City Mushrooms 