Photo above: by Gareth Hubbard Asparagus brought me to Northern Michigan eight years ago, and the promise of using local food to improve public health and personal wellness continues to hold me here. In 2008, I was living in Pittsburgh, and my then boyfriend invited...
What is culinary medicine, anyway?
Above: Lissa and Antonio, of Second Spring Farm, at farmers market. “Culinary Medicine” is becoming more relevant in conversations locally and across the United States. With rising chronic disease rates and persisting food insecurity, the 2022 National Strategy...
What’s on Tap for Our September Culinary Medicine Trainings
Since 2014, Groundwork has been hosting gatherings—roughly one every 18 months—to explore and promote the idea of deploying culinary medicine as a way to address some of the most challenging diet-related diseases facing our people as individuals and facing our nation...
Michigan’s school kids need farm-fresh food
This op-ed first published in The Detroit News. In Michigan, the importance of farm fresh food in schools cannot be overstated. This is a crucial time for the state when it comes to these issues because now more young people than ever are going hungry and need...
How every Michigan food pantry can partner with local farmers
This op-ed first published in Bridge Michigan. I’m thinking of a day a few years back when I witnessed something that was plain on the surface, but which was actually evidence of a micro-revolution in food access, and it happened in a Traverse City parking lot. It...
Urban Farmer and Policy Specialist Shares Thoughts on the MI Healthy Climate Conference
I joined the staff here at Groundwork in November 2022 and became a team member on the Food and Farming team. I currently work on the 10 Cents a Meal Program, and also come to Groundwork with experience as an urban farmer in my base of Detroit. Because of this, I...