About The Lunch Box Project and The Food, Family, Farming Foundation
Chef Ann Cooper
Founder, Food Family Farming Foundation, Partner, Lunch Lessons LLC, Food Services Director Boulder Valley School District, and Renegade Lunch Lady
Chef Ann Cooper is a celebrated author, chef, educator, and enduring advocate for better food for all children. In a nation where children are born with shorter estimated life expectancies than their parents because of diet-related illness, Ann is a relentless voice of reform by focusing on the links between food, family, farming and children’s health and wellness.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y., Ann has been a chef for more than 30 years including positions with Holland America Cruises, Radisson Hotels, Telluride Ski Resort as well as serving as Executive Chef at the renowned Putney Inn in Vt. She has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, ewsweek, and Time and has appeared on NPR’s ‘Living on Earth,’ ABC’s Nightline, CNN, PBS’ To The Contrary and the CBS Morning Show and many other media outlets. Ann has shared her knowledge and experience by speaking at the Smithsonian Institute, National Restaurant Association, Heifer Foundation, Chefs Collaborative, International Association of Culinary Professionals and numerous conferences. She has been honored by SLOW Food USA, selected as a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, and awarded an honorary doctorate from SUNY Cobleskill for her work on sustainable agriculture.
Ann is the author of four books: Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children (2006), In Mother’s Kitchen: Celebrated Women Chefs Share Beloved Family Recipes(2005), Bitter Harvest: A Chef’s Perspective on the Hidden Dangers in the Foods We Eat and What You Can do About It (2000) and A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen: The Evolution of Women Chefs (1998). She is past president of The American Culinary Federation of Central Vermont, and past president and board member of Women's Chefs and Restaurateurs. She also served on the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Standards Board, a Congressional appointment, and was an Executive Committee member of Chefs Collaborative - all in an effort to raise awareness about the value of healthful, seasonal, organic, and regional food.
Ann’s research for and writing of A Bitter Harvest provided a true epiphany for this always curious and proactive chef. No longer could the environmental and health facts be ignored when it came to producing food in this country. Ms Cooper’s career shifted from primarily cooking to a multitasking path of cooking, writing, and public speaking – all advocacy work for a healthier food system. There is no doubt that Ann is an accomplished chef, however her focus is now on using her skills and background to create a sustainable model for schools nationwide to transition any processed food based K-12 school meal program to a whole foods environment where food is procured regionally and prepared from scratch. In 2009, Ann founded Food Family Farming Foundation (F3) as a nonprofit focusing on solutions to the school food crisis. F3's pivotal project is The Lunch Box - a web portal that provides free and accessible tools, recipes and community connections to support school food reform.
Chef Ann is happily working overtime as a Chef, Food Services Director, Consultant, Author, Public Speaker, and Advocate because she sees a need for change and has the gifts to help. She envisions a time soon when being a chef working to feed children fresh, delicious, and nourishing food will no longer be considered “renegade.”
Chef Beth Collins
Executive Director, Food Family Farming Foundation, Partner Lunch Lessons LLC, Owner Local Plates LLC
Beth Collins has been cooking up change in kitchens, including school kitchens, for more than 15 years. She is a partner in Lunch Lessons LLC, with Ann Cooper. Beth also owns Local Plates LLC, a consulting business based in Traverse City, Mich., which offers food service solutions ranging from assessments to technical and tactical implementation of changes that result in healthier school food. Currently, Chef Beth works with the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colo. to implement its School Food Project, a local public-private initiative that resulted after Lunch Lessons, LLC, performed a Nutrition Services Feasibility Study for the district in 2008. Beth's other recent client engagements include: assessments of the Santa Cruz City School District and the Westminster Community Charter School in Buffalo, N.Y., technical assistance in procurement operations for the Berkeley Unified School District, workshop training for food service staff with the Orfalea Fund's S'cool Food Project, and a complete systemic overhaul of the Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools in Traverse City, shifting it from a contract reheat food service to a self operated scratch cooking based lunch program.
Chef Beth's experience in school food reform was catalyzed in 2000 with a move to East Hampton, N.Y. where she joined the culinary team at the Ross School. Beth worked at Ross School for six years establishing the local procurement and food processing system as her primary work within the management team. She became Executive Chef in 2004 and continued to refine the whole foods system model before moving on to consulting in 2006. Beth trained at Peter Kump’s Cooking School (now I.C.E.) in 1995 and worked in New York City with several culinary mentors including chefs Fortunato Nicotra, Lidia Bastianich and Michel Nischan.
Beth extends her work in schools into the broader advocacy work on the subject of food system change, food access, and reestablishing our regional food sheds as a means to expedite access for schools and other institutions wishing to shift their systems to whole foods. Understanding the challenges of federal and state historical practice and policies, hurdles of conventional distribution systems and the rapid degradation of small and mid size food based farming systems nationwide, Beth is passionate about “using it or losing it” in the quest to reconnect our lives and daily practice into a commitment to “real food.” Beth describes herself as a “heavy lifter”. She is well honed at examining existing systems and finding practical and efficient paths to enhance what is there and reinventing the system with whole foods practice and education at its core.
Chef Beth is one of the original visionaries for The Lunch Box Project, and as the Executive Director, she oversees The Lunch Box’s content, functionality and accessibility for all renegades.
Barbara Ann McMonigal
Program Coordinator
Barbara Ann McMonigal is the Program Coordinator and wears many hats at F3.She is the "info" behind our program email addresses and handles everything from office administration to interfacing with the thousands of Let's Move Salad Bars to school applicants. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N,Y., and former line cook at The Green Zebra in Chicago, Ill. Barbara learned first-hand about changing food in schools working under Chef Ann Cooper as a Nutrition Consultant for the Chez Panisse Foundation in the Berkeley Unified School District in Calif. Prior to cooking professionally, Barbara worked for organic vegetable farms. She also traveled the world, volunteering on farms to learn about local cuisines outside of the U.S. She earned a degree in Sociology/Organizational Studies from The University of Calif., Davis in 2002. Barbara believes deeply that fresh, nourishing food and knowledge about how to prepare it should be accessible to everyone and through that, the health of our communities and our environment will improve.
Sunny Young
Social Media Coordinator
Sunny Young is a young professional in the beginning of her mission to help change the way people think about food. She is a dedicated, talented, and resourceful team member of the Food Family Farming Foundation where she currently serves as a researcher, social media coordinator, and grant administrator for two of the foundation's projects: TheLunchBox.org and "Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools". She graduated in 2009 from Hendrix College with a BA in Africana Studies with an emphasis on Food Culture. After graduating she moved to Boulder, Colorado to begin work with The School Food Project of the Boulder Valley School District. She currently continues to volunteer for the project as well as with the local Boulder Slow Food chapter. Sunny believes that connecting kids with their food will be the only way to make healthy food system changes and she is ready to help be a part of that change!
