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​Sissy Kegley’s interest in land conservation began after her parents put the Roanoke City farm where she grew up into a land conservation easement in 2007. She now lives in a straw bale house on that same land. In 2021, she established Outback Orchards, through a collaboration with the Harvest Collective.
 After earning her MS in Applied Linguistics, Sissy has spent much of her adult life pursuing her life’s vocation and avocation- working with primarily low-wage immigrants and refugees teaching English along with their rights and responsibilities as new arrivals in this country. Her journey took her to Atlanta, where she helped establish one of the first law firms in the South to advocate for environmental justice, Namibia, and the Washington, DC area where she raised her two daughters. Today, Sissy enjoys learning the daily ups and downs of growing an urban farm.