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“Food needs to be at the grassroots. Food needs to stop being the problem. It’s the environment. It’s the economy. It’s health.” –@JoseAndres
This week @FreshFarmDC, the organization that runs farmer’s market throughout Washington, DC, and supports farms, farmers, and food educators in numerous mid-Atlantic states, welcomed its new executive director, Cat Oakar. Cat took a leading role in Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, and as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Health and Disparities in the Biden administration brought together representatives from industries and nonprofits to make the second White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health the catalyzing success it was. She’s a magnet—a nonstop source of energy, ideas, and support.
I say FreshFarm welcomed her, and it did, at a reception at the splendid @PhillipsCollection beside Dupont Circle, home of the original and still huge and vibrant farmer’s market I go to every Sunday there isn’t a blizzard. But José Andrés, a FreshFarm guiding force from its very start, 30 years ago, was able to attend the welcome reception and inspired to speak. Which meant every person who attended was galvanized to give—as he did, at the end of the remarks, with a spontaneous six-figure donation intended to spark every person there to support FreshFarm’s programs on food access and education, which many attendees including I confess me didn’t know about.
“Every president should have a national food security advisor,” José said. “I’m happy Cat is taking this role because the best is yet to come. Maybe she'll be the first food president!”
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