Our Village

Al Baylacq

Partner, Good Earth Natural Foods / Board of Directors, Turning Green

Al has co-led the growth of Good Earth Natural Foods since 1999. Since the early 1970’s, Good Earth’s mission has been to bring organic food into grocery stores in a consistent way, while supporting innovative and ethical organic growers and ranchers. Al’s dream was to be part of a marketplace that reflected the community it served. At the time he joined Good Earth, it was his intention that Good Earth would play a role as a “community hub,” while influencing and educating people and businesses far beyond its local community. Al is proud to have initiated an organic school lunch program through Good Earth in 2003. Good Earth’s school lunch program began with 4 schools, and currently is in 17 Marin County schools. Al and Good Earth’s support has been instrumental in the founding and growth of The Conscious Kitchen program.

Al Courchesne

Founder and Owner, Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood

Farmer Al has been farming stone fruit in Brentwood, CA since 1976. He began farming organically in the early 80’s because of a commitment he wanted to make to the soil, water and community– stewarding the land with care and treading lightly, to foster healthy communities and ecology, while supporting the people who work the land. Throughout his farming career, Farmer Al has been a vigorous advocate for sustainable land use, conservation, and organic farming practices.

Albert Straus

Founder and Executive Chair of Straus Family Creamery

Albert Straus is the Founder and Executive Chair of Straus Family Creamery – the first 100% certified organic creamery in the United States. He founded the Creamery in 1994, while his farm, the Straus Dairy Farm, became the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi River.

Albert has been a leader in sustainable organic farming practices for many decades. He is committed to creating a carbon-neutral organic dairy farming model on the Straus Dairy Farm. This internationally recognized model extends to Straus Family Creamery’s 12 other supplying dairy farms, which are on the path to being carbon neutral by 2030.

Climate-positive farming innovations at Albert’s farm include a methane digester, which converts cow waste into renewable energy for on-farm vehicles, including the first full-scale electric feed truck; a carbon farming program designed to measure and optimize carbon capture; and a first-of-its-kind trial at his farm in 2021, testing red seaweed to dramatically reduce enteric methane emissions.

Alex Emmott

Director of Food & Nutrition Services for Mt. Diablo Unified School District

Alexandra (Alex) Emmott is the Director of Food & Nutrition Services for Mt. Diablo Unified School District, where she serves over 24,000 meals daily across 55 schools.  Prior to joining MDUSD, Alex served as the Interim Executive Director of Student Nutrition Services for San Francisco USD, where she worked since 2018.  Alex has been in the food industry her entire life – she’s worked for both Boston Public Schools and Oakland USD and prior to her career in school food, she worked in restaurants and owned her own small farm to table bakery and café.  

Alice Waters

Chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant

Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. She has been a champion of local organic agriculture for over four decades. In 1995, with a background in Montessori education, she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. Applying the Montessori philosophy of learning-by-doing, the program uses an organic garden and on-site kitchen classroom to teach all academic subjects. The Edible Schoolyard Project model has been replicated in over 6,000 schools around the world.

In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act. In 2022, she was awarded the inaugural Carver Carson Award for American innovation in environmental protection and agriculture from the Henry Ford Museum. In 2023, she received the No Kid Hungry Humanitarian Award from Share Our Strength in Los Angeles, and in 2024 she was honored to receive the Julia Child Award from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. Alice is the author of sixteen books including her latest, We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto.

Barbara Jellison

Executive Director – Food Services, West Contra Costa Unified School District

Barbara leads a team of over 240 food service professionals in serving 27,500 students across 54 sites in a high needs district where 67% qualify for free and reduced meals. Barbara is a motivated, results-driven food service professional who most recently took on the challenges of the pandemic to test and bring organic products into the food service program. She has since continued to procure roughly 50% of food for the district from organic supplies, prioritizing CA fresh and minimally processed foods. Barbara has led her team in achieving equipment, training, and sourcing changes that are allowing them to increase the amount of fresh, organic, scratch-cooked menu items that they make in the central kitchen for service across the district. Having served the district for 22 years, Barbara’s experience extends back to culinary school and restaurant management and she continues to work to improve the food service quality and experience for students across her district. Barbara has successfully worked with both CDFA and USDA grants to help set goals for the district, link farm to school educational opportunities to the food service programming, and achieve procurement and recipe changes that incorporate fresh, local, organic products into school meals.

Clell Hoffman

Food Service Director for San Leandro Unified School District

Clell has over 44 years of culinary and food service experience, including catering for musical acts like the Grateful Dead, owning a restaurant, and working as an Executive Chef in the British Virgin Islands. A passionate educator, he became California’s youngest credentialed teacher at 19 and later taught at a charter school for at-risk youth. For 15 years, he served as the summer camp chef for Project Avary, supporting children of incarcerated parents.

As a food service director for 17 years, Clell focuses on scratch cooking, organic ingredients, and student collaboration, partnering with students to market new dishes, grow produce, and lead environmental initiatives. A former chair of the California Nutrition Advisory Council, he considers school food service his most rewarding challenge, highlighted by a student’s heartfelt comment: “I wasn’t going to come to school today, but I didn’t want to miss school lunch.”

Darrell Valor

Senior Culinary Manager, Albany Unified School District

Darrell is dedicated to enhancing student nutrition and well-being through innovative approaches in school food services. With a strong track record of leadership, he excels in driving sustainable practices and managing diverse teams. Committed to the vision of providing 100% from-scratch meals that are locally sourced and culturally relevant, Darrell is passionate about ensuring that all students have access to nutritious food. He embraces collaboration and continuous improvement to transform the culinary landscape of AUSD, striving to make a positive impact on the community.

Domitila Tapia

Farm Owner, Mimi’s Organic Farms, Salinas

Domitila works with her husband, and two daughters to run their family business, Mimi’s Organic Farms, in Salinas, California. The Tapias are the second and third generation of agricultural workers in their family lineage. With Domitila’s family and agricultural history originating in Mexico, growing organic has always been the way. While the market can be more difficult for organic farmers than conventional, Domitila is ever-passionate about growing organically. She loves eating her strawberries straight off the vine without worrying about chemical residues. Quality is very important to Domitila, so she uses natural remedies to combat pests and mites that can damage the growth of her super sweet strawberries. Domitila’s daughter, Marlen is very proud and grateful for all her parents have done for her and her sister.

Gary Grijalva

National Sales Director, Nature’s Path

Gary has 26 years of organic food industry experience working with privately owned organic food companies, General Mills’ organic foods division, and now with Nature’s Path, a family-owned organic food company that believes organic food is central to everyone, and that everyone should have access to it. With this company he is part of a team of pioneers that are trailblazing environmental topics, like sustainable packaging, carbon sequestration and more. Gary has been a strong advocate for organic cereal in K-12 schools, working closely with Conscious Kitchen and West Contra Costa Unified School District to taste and pilot Nature’s Path organic cereals in schools.

Jim Durst

Owner of Durst Organic Growers

Durst Organic Growers has been growing fresh market vegetables and hay and grains in their corner of Yolo County, California since 1988. To Jim and Deborah, farming organically is a way of life that includes nurturing healthy soils, care for employees and their families, care for the farm and planet’s ecosystem, and care for the local community.

Organic farming practices that continue to evolve over years of experience working with soils, allow for the growth of nutrient dense produce, whose flavor captures the taste of sunshine, living soils, and clean water — bringing the goodness of nature to your table.

Jim and Deborah believe it is their responsibility to provide a safe, supportive working environment for all. Farm work is not easy, and each and every employee is appreciated and valued for the unique gifts they bring to the farm workplace.

Their strong sense of responsibility extends to the local community as well, volunteering time, talents, and resources. They believe everyone exists for the common good and deserves a place at the table of organic, nutritious foods. Care of neighbor and community is the cornerstone of their ethic.

You can find a variety of Durst Organic produce in neighborhood markets across our country, including asparagus, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, melons and watermelons, and winter squash. All produce is grown in organically certified soils, harvested at the peak of flavor, and packed on site with care.

Maria Reyes

Farmer/Owner, Narci Organics, San Juan Bautista

Maria was born in Guerrero, Mexico and at a young age immigrated to the United States looking for a better future. She has been around agriculture since she was a child and spent 20 years as a farmworker mainly as a strawberry picker. In 2016, she decided to start her own business in organic farming. Maria made the decision because she was starting to have a lot of health issues due to intensive labor and exposure to harmful chemicals in conventional agriculture. “I am very happy I made the change and very proud of how much I have been able to accomplish.” She currently has a farm in San Juan Bautista that grows a wide variety of vegetables and fruits on 8.5 acres. Fun Fact: “I named my business after my mother, who passed away when I was a child. Her name was Narcisa and Narci was her nickname.”

Paul Kolling

Farm Owner, Nana Mae’s Organics, Sebastopol

Born and raised in San Francisco, Paul graduated from UC Berkeley in 1977 and began his career as an engineer for the US Geological Survey. He left that career to become a farmer when he purchased an apple farm in 1979 – now known as Nana Mae’s Organics. Paul is the original Sonoma County dry farm organic appleman, creating the first commercially available organic frozen fruit bars, organic applesauce, and organic apple cider vinegar. They farm over 200 acres of certified organic apples and pears in Sonoma County, and 65 acres of Forest Stewardship Council certified non-industrial timber management land in Mendocino County.

Sallie Calhoun

NoRegrets Initiative / Paicines Ranch

Sallie owns and manages the Paicines Ranch, a 7600-acre ranch in central California. She is also an impact investor, activist, and philanthropic funder in regenerative agriculture. Her work focuses on improving the health of agricultural soils and sequestering carbon in soil to mitigate climate change, while creating healthier people and planet. She is the founder of the No Regrets Initiative, which seeks to use a wide variety of forms of capital – human, natural, investment, and philanthropic to affect change in the agricultural system. Prior to becoming a rancher and farmer, Sallie spent almost 25 years as an engineer, COO, and high-tech entrepreneur. She worked in engineering and engineering management prior to joining her husband in founding Globetrotter Software, Inc. where she served as COO/CFO. They purchased the ranch after selling the company in 2001. Since then Sallie has had many adventures in ranching, grass fed beef, meat packing, holistic management, organic farming and much more. She is the managing member of Cienega Capital, an impact investing firm, and the president of the Globetrotter Foundation, a family foundation. She has served on a variety of for-profit and nonprofit boards, including Holistic Management International, Sierra Cascade Nursery, Agrarian Trust, and Estancia Beef. She loves to play tennis, hike, and travel.

Yadira Mendiola

Farm Owner, The Queen of Vegetables Organic Farm, Royal Oaks

Yadira owns and operates The Queen of Vegetables Organic Farm – appropriately named after herself as the only woman in her family. She developed a passion for organic after going through the Agriculture & Land-Based training Association (ALBA) education program, and she was really able to see the difference between conventional and organic farming after tending to her first half acre of organic land. This crucial experience led her to quit conventional farming altogether and pursue a career in organic farming. Despite the challenges associated with organic growing, Yadira believes that providing her community, including her 3 sons, with pesticide-free produce is worth it. In addition to owning her own business, she is also Conscious Kitchen’s Farm to School Liaison in the Central Coast region. Yadira’s biggest aspiration is to keep her community happy and healthy, and she continues to strive towards this through her role as a small organic farmer.