I farmed for a summer after graduation at an Urban Farm in south Philly. It was a transformative experience for me that made me want to dig deeper into food systems and create accessible, functional, local and healthy food systems for people. The Philadelphia program provided me resources, connections, networks, and conversations with regional leaders in the farming, political and private sectors and helped me connect how intricate and complex food systems can be. It’s all further complicated through analyzing our food supply through lenses like private companies lobbying, fair access to food, providing quality food, income disparities, and growing culturally relevant food.
After walking away with lessons and learnings that would last me a lifetime, the Ag Extension internship ended. I found myself newly enlightened on how much I cared about what goes into our bodies and the processes at play to get food from farm to table. Unfortunately or fortunately? I digressed from the path and went on to work at a financial services firm and then as a market researcher until I found my way back into this field through my current role as a Communications Coordinator with Grow Pittsburgh.I enjoy my role a lot especially because of the challenges I get to address with Marketing and Communicating to our diverse audiences and providing a story to our impactful work. It is fulfilling for me to dabble in various areas of marketing with the focus always being on how the Pittsburgh region can provide more access to fresh and local foods to all of its populations.
Some of what I enjoy most is coordinating efforts with our partners to increase the impact of our work, and using our platforms to amplify the voices of other smaller organizations who don’t have a similar reach, but are doing great work in their own ways. I’ve landed here with a position that is relevant to my degree in Marketing and allows me to continue building on my skills at a communicator and a marketer, but also I feel driven by the purpose of increasing access to fresh food for my fellow Pittsburghers.
In the future, I want to gear my energy towards participating in the public conversations on how our cities can be built to better and also how we can make healthy food more accessible.