Meet Katy & Kyle

Kyle and Katy started the Be the Change Project in 2011 and incorporated as a nonprofit in 2015. They are co-directors and take on a mix on work which varies in scope from single efforts to annual events to weekly outreach. Their work is buoyed by a fantastic community of friends, neighbors, and supporters.

Read more about their philosophy and outlook here.

Special thanks to the Be the Change Project Board Members.

Kyle Isacksen

Kyle enjoys teaching, building, and starting new ventures. He’s particularly passionate about the environment and working on solutions to habitat loss, climate change, and soil health starting in his yard and city.

Kyle is a former science teacher and co-founded Be the Change Project with Katy in 2011. He published a book on earthen ovens in 2022 and is a contributing writer for Mother Earth News Magazine where he shares about urban homesteading and simpler living.

For Be the Change Project, Kyle regularly works with other organizations and local government on projects, manages the website, leads fundraising efforts, does the weekly food collection with Mountain Ministries, writes the newsletters, and teaches a variety classes for BTC and their Cobitat Natural Building business.

(pictured above on the left with Pastor James in Kenya)

Katy Chandler

Katy is largely responsible for transforming what was a weedy and depressing half acre in our diverse neighborhood into the vibrant oasis our homestead is today.

Katy is a prolific gardener, a certified permaculture designer, urban garlic farmer, former math teacher (10 years), and school designer. She loves to dance, laugh, create art and pore over seed catalogs while cozied up to the wood stove on long winter nights.

For Be the Change Project, Katy manages volunteer efforts, leads outreach with schools and teaches gardening and permaculture classes and is an assistant teacher for our natural building workshops.

She and Kyle have two teenage sons who they’ve tried to raise with a deep social and ecological awareness.

(pictured above on the left with Athena Steen)