Oakland Food Policy Council

Komal Ahmad

Komal Ahmad serves as the one of the two undergraduates on the Oakland Food Policy Council. She is a fourth year student at UC Berkeley, majoring in International Health and Development, and minoring in Global Poverty and Practice and International Human Rights. She is passionate about public health and international relations and wishes to continue her studies in pursuit of a Masters in both. As Co-Founder, CEO and Executive Director of the non-profit BareAbundance, Komal is working hard to create an organization that unites resources related to homelessness, food justice, and hunger to engage students to take action while learning how to build organizational alliances both on and off campus. She is dedicated to improving the dignity and quality of life of the hungry and needy she serves. Her vision is to ensure that no one goes hungry, no food is wasted in our community, and no one is denied the opportunity or assistance to become self-sufficient.

Keli Benko

Keli Benko is a student in sociology at UC Berkeley. She is currently completing her Honors Thesis on the intersectionality of food, race, and poverty within the sustainable food movement. Dedicated to the goal of equitable food access for all, her research focuses on low income and minority communities in the surrounding SF Bay Area.  As an active member of the university, she aims to work as an ally between community organizations and the growing number of student youth interested in creating an alternative food system. In her spare time, Keli is an avid backpacker, surfer, and artist.

Mike Church

Lucrecia Farfan-Ramirez

Lucrecia Farfan-Ramirez is the director and academic advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) in Alameda County.  She supervises a cadre of researchers and staff conducting applied research, program development, and consultation in the areas of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Nutrition, and Youth Development.  Under her leadership and strong community building skills she bridge the University’s research and matching it with community needs. Lucrecia is very active working in community health and food systems. Lucrecia helped built the first CSA at UC Berkeley Gill Track field.  In 2000 she conducted one the first community food assessments in West Oakland, which indirectly created the food movement in Alameda County. She also facilitated the funding from UC SAREP to create the first food security advisory committee in Oakland.

Shelly Garza

Shelly Garza is the General Manager for Rising Sun Entrepreneurs, LLC.    Rising Sun Entrepreneurs is a family owned company that provides resources, guidance and a commercial kitchen facility for mobile food vendors.    She works hard towards creating an equal playing field for small business owners in the mobile food industry throughout the City of Oakland.   

She also has 11 years management experience; Working for the City of Oakland as a Community Liaison for City Council, as an Executive Assistant to two City Managers & Executive Assistant to the Redevelopment Agency, she has gained management skills and knowledge in creating opportunities for low income families to start their small business and become self sufficient, self sustaining Oakland based business owners.

Kari Hammerschlag

Kari Hamerschlag is a senior analyst in the Environmental Working Group's Oakland office. Kari tracks 2008 Farm Bill spending in California and promotes policies that expand local and sustainable agriculture and increase consumption of healthy food. She also educates and activates consumers on food issues and recently authored the Meateater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health. Prior to EWG, Kari worked as a sustainable food and fair trade policy consultant and began her career twenty years ago as a researcher and advocate for socially and environmentally sound development policy, focused in Latin America. Kari lives in East Oakland and has a Masters from UC Berkeley in Latin American studies and City and Regional Planning.

Jenny Huston

Jenny, a native of San Francisco, has 30 years of wide ranging experience in the restaurant and food services industry. She operated J. Huston Catering and consulting for 17 years, while earning academic degrees from San Jose State University in Dietetics and Food Sciences, and Management and her Masters from New York University in Food Economics, Policy, and Food Systems, to support her work on issues of food equity, nutrition and social justice. In addition to teaching culinary arts at local community colleges and consulting, Jenny has worked with Project Open Hand in San Francisco, The Doe Fund, in New York City and Bay Area Community Services in Oakland. Jenny is the founder of Farm to Table Food Services in Oakland.

Faro Jones

Faro Jones is a registered dietitian living and working in Oakland, CA. She received her B.S. in Dietetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Masters of Public Health from Tulane University in New Orleans. Faro first moved to the Bay Area in 2002 as an AmeriCorps volunteer and worked as a benefits advocate in a Supportive Housing Program helping multiply-challenged clients navigate the public benefits system. This experience led her to graduate school in New Orleans where she spent time volunteering in impoverished communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and working as a dietitian in a community hospital. Faro currently works with the WIC program in East Oakland and is committed to helping women and their families expand their nutritional awareness and reap the benefits of healthy eating.

Carolyn Lasar

Carolyn moved from New Jersey to Oakland in 2007 and has been active in the sustainable food and agriculture community on both coasts. Carolyn holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College, a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture from UC Santa Cruz, and a Masters Degree from Cornell University in the Sociology of Agriculture and Development. Carolyn is an experienced inspector for organic certification of farms, handlers and processors and was active in implementing NOFA-NJ’s organic certification program. At Greenmarket farmers market, NYC, Carolyn worked with over 100 farmers and makers of local, artisanal food products. Through on-site visits she evaluated production and compliance with market rules fostering positive relationships between the market and its producers.

Jennifer LeBarre

Jennifer is the Director of Nutrition Services for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). The Vision of OUSD Nutrition Services is to create a world class Nutrition Services team that is recognized as the best in California. Jennifer and her staff are working towards this goal by developing and implementing several innovations which have improved the meal experience for students. Jennifer also works at the State and National level to improve school meals; is a member of School Food FOCUS, a W.K. Kellogg Foundation project aimed at making improvements in large urban school district meal programs; and is a member of School Nutrition Association and California School Nutrition Association.

Aaron Lehmer

Aaron co-founded Bay Localize, a nonprofit that works to strengthen all Bay Area communities through regional self-reliance. He develops the organization’s Local Resilience Network and coordinates its outreach efforts. Aaron holds an M.A. in Globalization and the Environment from Humboldt State and a B.A. in Anthropology, Philosophy, and Environmental Studies from Iowa State. He’s worked for the Ella Baker Center, Circle of Life, Earth Island Institute, and the Student Environmental Action Coalition. His commentaries have been on NPR, in the Earth Island Journal, Sacramento News & Review, and the S.F. Bay Guardian. Aaron is a gardener, hiker, and amateur astronomer.

Armando Nieto

Y. Armando Nieto is the executive director of the California Food and Justice Coalition. He has served as C.E.O. of Redefining Progress, Managing Director at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, and Executive Director with Eagle Eye Institute in Somerville, Massachusetts, Earth Share of California and the Environmental Defense Center. Since 2005 he has served as organizing member of Summit 2007: Diverse Partners for Environmental Progress, and facilitator and report co-author for the related Western Regional Roundtable in Oakland and Southwest Regional Roundtable in Albuquerque, NM. He is president of the Tulare County Community Water Center and has served on the Advisory Boards of Just Communities, the PG&E ClimateSmart External Advisory Group, and the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy.

Camille Pannu

Camille Pannu is an Equal Justice Works Fellow and staff attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment (CRPE)'s Delano office. She works primarily with CRPE's Green & Just Economic Development campaign to support community-driven and community-owned "green" economic development programs in very low-income San Joaquin Valley communities of color. Prior to law school Camille worked with Connecticut and Kenyan farmers to support water sanitation and food security in small, rural farming communities.

Allison Pratt

Allison Pratt has been working as the Director of Policy and Services at the Alameda County Community Food Bank since 2005. In this position, she implements the Food Bank’s public policy agenda, which includes working closely with elected officials and their staffs to promote policies that address the root causes of hunger and poverty. Allison also works with local and statewide coalitions -- including the California Hunger Action Coalition – to empower community members to become advocates. At the Food Bank, she oversees a multilingual food stamp outreach program that serves as the blueprint for food banks nationwide. Allison is the author of Hunger: The Faces & The Facts 2010, one of the most comprehensive local reports on hunger in the Feeding America network of food banks.

David Ralston

David Ralston is a planner and project manager for the City of Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency principally involved in local development and infrastructure projects that combine resident engagement and green job opportunities with place-based design.  David is also a fellow of the Institute of Sustainable Policy Studies at Merritt College, collaborating to develop neighborhood “greenway” projects that will form a framework for a more resilient and sustainable city.

Susan Shelton

Susan Shelton is Manager of Community Housing Services, Department of Human Services, for the City of Oakland. Susan received her B.S. in Planning and Public Administration at the Winston-Salem State University, and her Masters in Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Susan joined the City of Oakland in 1985, and has worked in the area of homelessness and hunger since 1988. Susan manages large community events for the City, such as the City’s Annual Thanksgiving Dinner; Brown Bag Distributions; and children-focused events, often serving 3,000 to 5,000 people. Susan assists with implementation of the City’s Hunger Program; the county-wide EveryOne Home Plan to end homelessness; and the Oakland Permanent Access to Housing Strategy. She also staffs the mayor’s Emergency Food Providers Advisory Committee.

Sylvia Soublet

Chris Waters

Chris founded Nomad Café in Oakland in 2003.  The Nomad has earned international recognition and numerous sustainability awards for its practice and promotion of the principles of Fair Trade, zero waste, local and organic sourcing, and socially just community and economic development. Chris helped establish the Green Chamber of Commerce and serves as an Advisory Board member to the Green Café Network. As an Oakland public school parent, he has worked closely with the Oakland Unified School District and its Wellness Council to support broader access and improved nutrition for school-aged children and their families, and to combat the childhood obesity epidemic. Chris supports sustainability, affordable housing, and low-income food access programs in his role on the North Oakland District One CDBG Board and the Broadway/Macarthur/San Pablo Redevelopment PAC.

Sara Weihmann

Sara Weihmann is the founder and co-owner of All Edibles, an east bay landscaping company specializing in the design, installation and educational maintenance of urban farms and edible gardens. She serves on the board of City Slicker Farms, a West Oakland non-profit organization that grows fresh, affordable produce for local residents. Sara has been a member of Oakland's HOPE Collaborative since 2007. She has designed and implemented gardening curriculum for after-school programs in the Oakland Unified School District. Sara holds a Green MBA in Sustainable Enterprise from Dominican University. Sara's ongoing efforts revolve around her genuine belief that an abundant and equitable food system is the most effective leverage point for local ecological and social change.

Diane Woloshin

Diane is currently the Director of Nutrition Services for the Alameda County Health Department. She has more than 25 years of public health and advocacy experience acting as manager of numerous large-scale public health programs and special projects. She has worked in various county health department and nonprofit agencies and most recently was the Deputy Director of the California WIC Association. Ms. Woloshin is a Registered Dietitian and received her B.S. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a Master of Science in Health Care Administration from California State University at Long Beach. She is passionate about health and nutrition and promoting healthy communities.

Heather Wooten

Heather Wooten is a Senior Planning and Policy Associate with Planning for Healthy Places at Public Health Law & Policy. She is co-author of How to Create and Implement Healthy General Plans, and has produced model planning policies to support healthy community infrastructure like community gardens and farmers' markets. Prior to joining the Planning for Healthy Places team, she co-authored the Oakland Food System Assessment: Towards a Sustainable Food Plan through the Oakland Mayor's Office of Sustainability. Ms. Wooten attended the University of Minnesota and earned a Masters of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sabrina Wu
Sabrina has been working in public health, nutrition, and sustainable food systems for the past 10 years.  has consulted for a sustainable agriculture institute in Beijing, China, worked on public health advocacy campaigns at Boston Public Health Commission, worked with farmers markets through New York City's Greenmarket program, run her own healthy and sustainable catering business, coordinated a nutrition education program called CookShop in New York City, and run youth peer health education programs in San Francisco. Sabrina earned a M.S. in Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Policy from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, where she was a USDA Sustainable Science Fellow, and a B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University. Sabrina is currently a Project Associate at HOPE Collaborative.