Meet The Mamas

The Green Mama courtesy of Chicago Magazine.Manda Aufochs Gillespie, a.k.a. The Green Mama, President, Founder

Manda Aufochs Gillespie is a consultant, writer, environmentalist, and mother. She has been featured as the green parenting expert in numerous media sources: from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine to TV programs such as The Lazy Environmentalist (Showtime) and Save My Planet (ABC’s Live Well HD Channel). 

In 2007, Manda founded The Green Mama LLC to bring green living information to parents and businesses. She has worked with Chicago’s premier green stores, the country’s first green daycares, and with corporations trying to truly live green. Her writings have been published on AMotherWorld.com, Alternet.org, and in Conscious Choice.  In 2009, she expanded the business to include other green mamas and cover the West Coast and parts of Canada. Together The Green Mama team provides interactive and upbeat workshops focused on living green, consulting to individuals and businesses going green, and numerous on-line resources. The popular Green Mama Blog has been syndicated in Chicago and Canada and The Green Mama can also be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Chicago NOW.

Manda holds a B.A. in environmental studies and politics from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Before The Green Mama, she worked with EcoCity Cleveland bringing green practices to community design and managed one of the country’s first urban ecovillages. Today, she can be found riding her bicycle with her daughter at the helm, carrying home food from the local farmers market, while talking on her phone about the merits of cloth diapering.

Cecelia Ungari, Director of Education

Cecelia Ungari has been teaching sustainable lifestyle choices for more than 5 years in the Chicago region. Two projects that she is particularly proud of are the Right Bite sustainable seafood awareness program and the Green Initiative, which she spearheaded while working at the John G Shedd Aquarium. Besides her work with The Green Mama, Cecelia can also be found at Evanston’s Healthy Green Goods helping yet another small green business practice what it preaches. Cecelia is also a trained doula focusing on the complete spectrum of maternity support:  preconception, pregnancy, labor and post-partum stages.

Cecelia brings her interest in conservation, human biology, and the history of chemicals to all of her jobs.  

While Cecelia is not yet a biological mama, she is focusing on preparing her body and home with her partner, Phil.  Known to friends as the queen of concoctions, Cecelia is constantly mixing, blending, or brewing local, organic foods to eat, drink or put on her skin. She's most proud of her experiments and recipes for deodorant, hair conditioner and carrot cake cookies: ask her and she just might share a concoction or two!

Kari McLennan, LEED AP, Consultant, Educator

Before starting with the Green Mama, Kari worked in the green building industry for 3.5 years with Greenmaker Supply (now Green Depot) and Eco Tec Insulation. Her career started as the assistant manager in a health foods store before she moved to California to become the assistant manager of a green lifestyle and renewable energy store in L.A. There her passion took root and she has been inspired ever since to find the best solutions and products for eco-conscious and chemical-free living. In Chicago, she has been an active participant in the green community through her work with the Foresight Design Initiative since it’s inception in 2002. First as a volunteer, then as a board member, and manager for the popular monthly event, Green Drinks.

As a consultant and educator, her specialties include green building materials, green product selection for retail or online stores, green practices for daycares and small businesses, and green living practices. 

In her free time, you can find Kari practicing yoga at Self Centered Yoga, creating something new in the kitchen, or sharing the road with her husband as they ride their motorcycles up to Wisconsin (or beyond!)

Bridget Muldoon Felix with baby Sean.Bridget Muldoon Felix, Educator

Bridget Muldoon Felix's passion for the environment began while living in the southwest desert where she stumbled across a book by Edward Abbey. His writings opened her eyes to the major environmental problems of that area like unsustainable sprawl, water shortages, lack of public transportation, and the brown layer of smog hovering over the city. She realized that one way to protect and preserve land and resources was to educate herself and others. Bridget has a BS in Recreation and Tourism Management with an emphasis in sustainable tourism, outdoor recreation, and environmental education from Arizona State University. During her studies she wrote a paper titled "Human Survival in the Future of Earth's Natural Resources." That research forever changed her view on everything from forests to water to over-population.  She has continued to educate herself by reading the works of Rachel Carson, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Aldo Leopold, and Edward Abbey's entire catalog.

In 2007, Bridget cured herself of cervical cancer using holistic methods. That experience made her more conscious of exposure to toxins both inside and outside the body and prompted her to enroll at the Global College of Natural Medicine where she is currently studying holistic health and nutrition.  Bridget happily lives a green lifestyle at home and promotes green habits at work as a flight attendant and "Wholebirth" prenatal yoga teacher.

In Bridget’s free time, you can find her in downward dog at Three Pillars Yoga, rock climbing indoors whenever she can't be outside, and flying around the world in search of the next great hike always being sure to follow the "leave no trace" land ethic. She currently resides in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood with her husband, Brian and son, Sean.

Cindy Clendenin, Educator

Cindy Clendenin’s first solo drive after getting her drivers license was to the recycling center and from there her drive toward sustainability has continued. She still remembers the poster of harmful food additives that hung on her refrigerator as a kid.

In 2000, she received her MBA in entrepreneurship from DePaul University and currently runs four family businesses with her husband. In 2007, after getting pregnant with her son, John, Cindy upped her green game to prepare for and maintain a healthy home and environment for her family. She became part of the Green Mama Café series and, a self professed non-green thumb, she decided to change that by starting an organic rooftop garden and is adding houseplants to purify the air in her family’s home.

Cindy believes strongly in community and its enormous power to heal and change the world. She brings her depth of understanding on running small businesses along with her passion for the outdoors, integrative medicine, music and the arts, and physical activity to all she does. Cindy is often seen riding her bike around town with groceries precariously hanging over the sides of the vintage orange milk crate bungeed to her bike as she mentally plans her family's next travel adventure.

Lisa Massura, Volunteer

Lisa is a native California-girl who was instilled with green appreciation and awareness from a young age by her parents who made a concerted effort to eat healthy , avoid chemicals and toxins, and recycle. When she was young her family grew many of their own fruits and vegetables and today they still keep a mulch pit. She has lived in downtown Chicago for nearly five years, working as a corporate tax accountant and hoping to find a "green" crowd. After becoming a full-time mama upon the birth of her son, Nash, in December 2008, Lisa attended The Green Mama Cafe series at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and found the crowd she was seeking. Lisa and her husband, Andy, happily practice attachment parenting.