We’re thrilled to introduce Anne Poarch, the first Director of Advancement for Capital Trees, who joined our team in January 2024. Read her bio below to get to know Anne, her background, and how nature and the outdoors have been a through line for her for decades.

A Richmond-based author and entrepreneur, Anne grew up the youngest of five in North Carolina. Her mother and sister taught her the finer arts of shelling fresh peas and planning a picnic, while her father and brothers taught her how to paint, fish, and garden… to be outside and ramble the woods. After graduating cum laude from Wake Forest University, Anne traveled to Paris, where she worked as an au pair for the Picasso family, and attended the University of Paris, Sorbonne; finding herself sending more time in the public gardens than the museums. After her year-long sojourn abroad, she returned to live and work in Richmond where she lives today with her husband and two sons. Anne worked for twenty-two years in the financial services industry before leaving to start her own company and pursue her creative interests supporting environmental stewardship.

In 2016 Anne founded BASKET & BIKE, a bicycle tour company that promotes leisurely excursions in nature and along the bike lanes of Richmond, including The Low Line. Through her business and her poetry, Anne has empowered thousands of people to connect with the land and their communities in graceful, new ways. BASKET & BIKE gives back a portion of every tour to conservation causes in the Richmond area. Her two books of nature-based poetry, Flight: of butterflies and robins and other winged dreams (2017) and The Grit & Joy of Being (2019), both published by local press Belle Isle Books, round out a creative drive for authenticity and communing with our natural world. Visiting parks and gardens with her family, friends, and clients, remain among her most enduring and cherished memories, whether in Richmond or elsewhere. She considers supporting our public parks a civic responsibility and a gift to our shared community.