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Rooted in Community: Nourishment, Culture, and Connection Through Food
Free Virtual Roundtable
July 29 from 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Register on Zoom
Food nourishes more than our bodies—it sustains our identities, our traditions, and our communities. Join Fair Food Network for a conversation that digs into how community food programs—from nutrition incentives and produce prescriptions to food pantries and food banks—can evolve to do more than fill plates. These programs have the potential to be vehicles for dignity, belonging, and cultural connection.
Fair Food Network’s Erica Raml, Senior Director of Nutrition Incentives, will be joined by David Peeples, Director of Programs at The Food Group in Minneapolis, and Kirsten Hansen, FreshRx Program Coordinator at New Mexico Farmers Market Association to explore how programs across the food system and health-focused nutrition interventions are shifting toward models that uplift local growers, reflect cultural foodways, and center community voices.
Meet the Speakers
Kirsten Hansen
FreshRx Program Coordinator, New Mexico Farmers' Marketing Association
Kirsten has lived in and loved New Mexico for more than 20 years. Her passion has always been teaching, and she spent many years home schooling her children in Santa Fe. To stay connected with the greater community, she volunteered at several local non-profits while her children were young. Now, she is putting some of those teaching and organizational skills to good use promoting New Mexico’s farmers’ markets and helping reduce food insecurity in our state. She holds a BA from Williams College in Massachusetts and considers herself a life-long learner. If she doesn’t have her nose in a book, chances are you will find her in the garden out back, struggling to make beautiful things grow with the dubious help of three pups.
David Peeples
Director of Programs, The Food Group
David has over 25 years of leadership experience in nonprofit community-driven collaboratives, entry-level workforce coaching, and various healthcare and corrections industries. He has built and cultivated effective teams, created and managed innovative programs, and led inclusive community outreach. His areas of expertise also include change management, motivational interviewing, mental health and wellness, and relationship management.
David’s personal vision is to develop community partnerships that produce generational excellence in well-being. He sees himself as a connector – helping individuals see their inner greatness and collaborating on transformative strategies that benefit themselves and their communities. He has supported awareness of new possibilities while celebrating past community strengths.
Originally from Detroit, MI, David is a graduate of Michigan State University. He has lived in the Twin Cities for 16 years with his wife and son. His favorite hobby is collecting Silver Age Marvel Comics and attending as many local comic conventions as he can afford.
Erica Raml
Senior Director of Nutrition Incentives, Fair Food Network
As Senior Director of Nutrition Incentives, Erica leads Fair Food Network’s nutrition incentive work, including the nonprofit’s Double Up Food Bucks program in Michigan as well as the development and delivery of training and technical assistance services for nutrition incentive practitioners across the country.
Over the past decade, Erica Christensen Raml has worked with communities across the country to increase food access and support local economies. Erica has helped implement eight nutrition incentive programs in Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York City. She has been responsible for program outreach, data tracking, design, and implementation for programs operating at farmers’ markets, health clinics, hospitals, and farm share sites. Most recently, she developed values-aligned partnerships and managed operations at a New York City-based food hub. For her work, she was named one of the top 40 under 40 by the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center. Prior to that she coordinated training and technical assistance programs at the Wallace Center, which supported the growth of value chains and food hubs across the country.
A biracial Chinese-American, Erica holds a master’s degree in global environmental politics from American University and a bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies from the University of Memphis. She enjoys morning runs, spending time outdoors with her husband, and trying every bowl of ramen she can get her hands on.
