Meet The Team

Jonathan Ryan Gardner

Founder/ Executive Director

Jonathan Ryan Gardner is the Founding Executive Director of GardHouse. With several years of external and internal outreach experience, Jonathan has led engagement initiatives from the tech industry to the government sector. As ED of Charlotte’s first work-based organization that primarily focuses on college students of color, Jonathan developed paid internships within small businesses and nonprofits to demonstrate that they too can be economic drivers and training hubs for young talent. He launched GardHouse after finding that underserved college students were twice as likely to be unemployed than their counterparts for the last fifty years. Utilizing his outreach experience and Philadelphia upbringing as his foundation, Jonathan vowed to provide personalized experiences for students of color to excel in whatever field they choose.

EDUCATION

La Salle University, B.A. in Communication

AWARDS/AFFILIATIONS/RECOGNITIONS

2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree

Lizzy Randolph is the Associate Director of Career Readiness at GardHouse. Lizzy is passionate about working with youth and is dedicated to increasing educational equity and economic mobility. Lizzy served as a City Year AmeriCorps volunteer, tutor, and mentor with middle school students in Baton Rouge, LA. She began her career as a Site Coordinator with Communities In Schools in Baton Rouge before relocating to Charlotte, NC in 2017. She has school social work experience with Union County Public Schools and program coordination and case management experience with the Charlotte Housing Authority. Lizzy most recently served as a program manager with the Wake Forest University Pre-College Programs Department where she designed and implemented programming allowing middle and high school students the opportunity to explore careers of interest and experience college life.