Dory Bennett is a Pasadena native who grew up fascinated by the outdoors and nursing local wildlife back to health. She took her love of nature to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL, where she majored in Biology. In college, Dory focused on ecology, the environment, and conservation, including designing and growing her own species of water-tolerant melon. Before Food Forward, she worked for the City of Pasadena in parks and recreation and for 8 years served as a Rose Parade float crew chief, making dinosaurs and spaceships out of flowers and seeds. She is passionate about economic and food justice issues and is excited to help tackle these problems with the backyard harvesting team. In her downtime, Dory spends time tending her garden, hiking with her dog, and raising a flock of chickens.

I am originally from the state of Puebla in Mexico. I grew up in a town called Huachinantla. Growing up I attended school, worked in agriculture with my family, and enjoyed hunting. Prior to working at Food Forward I worked as a driver and dispatcher at the Wholesale Produce Market for 17 years. One day at work Luis explained what Food Forward does with donated produce and he told me he was looking for a driver. I was immediately interested! In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, playing soccer and playing music with my band.

Joe Bobman comes to Los Angeles by way of Central Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. He spent five years working with food and environmental justice programs up and down the Connecticut River Valley, including farmers markets, community and school gardens, and a bike advocacy program. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, he began working at SOVA’s Community Food & Resource Program, where he developed an incredible appreciation for Southern California’s abundance of fresh produce and passionate volunteers. He is also a professional baker and has worked at bakeries, food trucks, and one of L.A.’s top restaurants. When he’s not working, he is cooking at home, riding around on his bike, or reading anything written by Ursula K. LeGuin.

I am originally from Puebla, Mexico.  Before I worked at Food Forward, I was a driver in the produce industry for 15 years. I enjoy being a driver because I get to interact with people from many different countries and backgrounds. I enjoy working at Food Forward because we help many people in need. When I’m not working, I enjoy playing music with my band and spending time with my family.

Sam Cahall spent her childhood in rural Kentucky running wild in the woods near her home. She attended Centre College and earned a degree in Sociology and Anthropology. After school she held various sales and food industry jobs, and served as an admin at an environmental nonprofit. She found the most joy in making granola on her boss’s one-acre homestead surrounded by goats, inspiring great interest in alternative food channels. In 2016 she traded out the Appalachian Foothills for the San Gabriel Mountains. To help get the lay of the land she canvassed Los Angeles for an environmental nonprofit but most recently was head of a bakery. Her aim to live by the motto to “leave things better than you found it” has returned her to the world of nonprofits. When she is not working, Sam is in the kitchen recreating family recipes and the delicious foods found in her new home. Apart from food, she also enjoys abandoning craft projects, reading, and spending time outdoors.

Michele Chase is a Los Angeles native and chef. She joins the staff at Food Forward after serving as a very active volunteer since 2017, when she first learned about the Produce Pick-Ups. She is excited to expand the Wholesale Recovery Program and support the organization in the Agency Relations department. Prior to Food Forward, Michele worked as a food stylist, food writer, chef, farmer, and in the distant past, art historian. She enjoys eating, cooking, languages, family time, singing, driving, hiking, travel, and animals. She has lived in Montreal, New York, and Boulder, where she worked at a nonprofit vegetable farm that nourished her interest in food sustainability. She is committed to minimizing waste and serving her hometown. She is equally committed to pasta.

Growing up in Oakland, CA, Celia Cody-Carrese spent her youth hiking in the redwood forests and developing passions for activism, community service, and the environment. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a degree in Geography and Environmental Studies at UCLA, where she joined social justice and sustainability organizations. She was particularly involved in UCLA’s zero waste efforts; she organized community Reuse Fairs and developed plans for a reusable takeout container program for the dining halls. Celia honed her communications and social media skills as the Marketing Director for UCLA’s largest sustainability club, E3 and interned with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Building Resilience – LA program, where she expanded the scope of the program through workshops and online materials. Celia is fascinated by LA’s history and its challenges, and upon graduating knew she had to stick around and work to make the region more equitable and sustainable. When she’s not spreading the word about food justice, Celia is most likely cooking or baking, listening to podcasts, exploring the city on her bike, and petting as many dogs as possible.

Jen Cox grew up just outside of Detroit, Michigan on the sixth Great Lake, Lake St Clair. When she graduated from college, Jen moved to Washington, DC for a six-month internship that turned into a twenty-year career in environmental policy and organizing. After serving in nonprofit fundraising leadership at several advocacy organizations, Jen relocated to Los Angeles and built a consulting practice providing fundraising guidance on climate, environmental education, democracy reform, and social justice issues. Previous volunteer experience in food distribution inspired Jen to want to serve in her new hometown and led her to Food Forward. Jen earned her BA with a dual concentration in environmental policy and history at the University of Michigan and is certified in nonprofit management by Georgetown University’s professional development program. When not learning everything she can about Southern California’s fruit and vegetable abundance, Jen enjoys taking day trips to see the beauty of the coast and the desert, experiencing LA’s music legacy, and sampling the incredible tacos.

Wendy Chen Epstein came to Los Angeles when she was eleven from a family of Taiwanese restaurateurs. Through a Contemporary Social Justice class, Wendy learned of the food injustice in her own backyard, Los Angeles. Her conviction to help right this wrong led her to Antioch University, where she studied Business and Social Entrepreneurship with an emphasis on Nonprofit Management. Wendy comes to us with 15 years of management experience and great determination to serve the community. Outside of Food Forward, Wendy volunteers as a TA at Bridge, a free college program for people living below the poverty line. You may also find her perusing the latest restaurants and attending social justice workshops.

I grew up in Salvatierra, Guanajuato, Mexico. I have been working in agriculture since my early teens with my grandfather and later on the tomato harvest in Merced, California. At first it was very tiring but as time passed it helped me learn the value of hard work and gave me a great appreciation for the produce business. Before coming to Food Forward I worked in Los Angeles Wholesale produce market as a warehouse clerk and supervisor for 19 years. One day while I was talking to Luis about the work Food Forward does and asked him to let me know about job openings. I find the work very interesting and really value being able to help people in need, especially low-income families. In my free time, I like to play the electric bass and practice with a Norteño band. And I also enjoy spending time with my family.

Diane grew up in suburban Los Angeles, where she and her siblings used to pick avocados from their backyard and sell them 8 for $1! After college at UC San Diego and earning a Stanford MBA, Diane’s early career focused on finance, strategic planning, and change management with large and small for-profit organizations. She also started teaming up with other MBAs to do pro-bono projects with nonprofits, and gained tremendous satisfaction from seeing the “ah-ha” moments created when talented people with different backgrounds blend their best ideas to tackle social issues and create impact. As a result, she became increasingly passionate about applying her skills to help organizations improve people’s lives. Diane has since focused her career on supporting community-based organizations, and has worked with over 200 nonprofits in her roles as an executive director, grantmaker, professional services provider, and consultant. When she met Rick and Food Forward in 2010, she became an instant fan of the organization, so was thrilled to join the staff in 2021!

LaNeisha is a Compton native who spent a large part of her childhood gardening with her grandparents, which drove her desire to be a doctor. In high school she began cooking and discovered a passion for food. Currently, a student at ASU earning her degree in Nutrition, she has developed an interest in food justice and food insecurity as she strives to serve her community in Los Angeles. In her free time she enjoys gardening and spending time with family.

After a long career in newspapers, Andrea Howry planted new roots and became the Ventura County Branch Coordinator in July of 2019. She’d been leading backyard fruit picks for about four years, hooked after the first pick when she found a bird’s nest in a citrus tree with a tiny blue egg inside. She and her husband have lived in Ventura for 27 years, raising three kids and several rescued dogs. She is a graduate of Stanford University and enjoys hiking and reading.

Tanzi Jackson was born and raised in Van Nuys, CA. She attended UC Davis where she studied Environmental Policy and Geology. There, she worked to reduce waste in the dining areas around campus as well as participating in many environmental student government roles revolving around environmental education and university policy change. After graduating, Tanzi taught high school Environmental Science. She enjoyed helping students discover how their everyday actions and decisions affect their environment. She is excited to fuse her passions for sustainability and nutrition in this new role. When she isn’t in the office, Tanzi enjoys attending outdoor concerts and movies, tending to her new houseplants, and listening to podcasts.

Pearson King (he/him/his) is a passionate advocate for equity in food, sustainability, and the outdoors and believes in place-based, community-led solutions to systemic injustices. After graduating with a degree in Environmental Policy & Development from the University of Vermont, Pearson worked in the Southeast as a sustainability consultant for small farms and managed a grass-fed beef cattle farm. In 2017, he relocated to Los Angeles and joined the Food Forward team. In addition to his duties at Food Forward, Pearson is co-chair of the Food Waste Prevention & Rescue Working Group at the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. He also is a member of the leadership team for Climb the Gap, a group dedicated to increasing diversity and equity in the rock climbing community. In his free time, Pearson can be found somewhere outside, most likely rock climbing or hiking with his dog Scully.

I was born and grew up among the rolling hills of Villa Purificacion, Jalisco, Mexico. In my hometown, I was a rancher. I grew up growing food, being around animals, and I enjoyed drinking warm fresh raw milk with chocolate and sugar. We had plantain trees, apple trees and horses. My favorite horses were named Retinto and Rebel. Before coming to Food Forward I worked in construction, as a butcher, a driver and in a grocery store. Five years prior to working at Food Forward, I started and developed a food recovery for my church. and it was God’s plan for me to find Food Forward. When I’m not working, I like to preach God’s word and work as a missionary.

Before founding Food Forward in 2009, Rick was an award-winning photographer and writer who focused on the faces and stories of marginalized communities. His formal training as a cook, along with his exploration of California’s agricultural workforce in his body of work entitled “The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers” gave him a deep appreciation of and involvement in both the gourmet cooking and food justice worlds. These varied interests, along with his conviction that access to healthy, fresh, nutritious food is a human right, culminated in him coming aboard as full-time Executive Director of Food Forward in 2011.

He’s spoken internationally on food justice and social innovation issues, and his work has been profiled in dozens of media outlets including The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, The Guardian, Sunset Magazine, NPR, and The Los Angeles Times. Rick has served as a regional delegate to the Slow Food/Terra Madre Conference in Torino and as a Ralph M. Parsons Fellow, and won Fast Pitch competitions for Food Forward in California and Texas. He received an inaugural Trailblazer Award by the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 2016, and the TIAA Difference Maker award in 2018. He was named a Food Champion by LA City Council, a 2017-18 Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Policy, one of 40 Inspiring Leaders by the Center for Nonprofit Management, and a 2020 Impact-Maker to Watch by Los Angeles City Council & Board of Supervisors. Rick serves on the Leadership Circle of the LA Food Policy Council.

Quang Nguyen grew up on the beaches of Southern California. After graduating from the University of California, Irvine, he started his career in software sales and data analysis. Wanting to do more for his hometown, he found himself in the nonprofit education management world, where he helped several organizations expand and scale in their operations, finance, and IT. During this time he was exposed to the disparity in the availability of basic resources to a large population. Quang is excited to be joining the Food Forward team and the food justice movement. Away from the office, Quang enjoys wrenching on machines, visiting the beaches and mountains, and spending time with his family.

I am originally from Chiquimula, Guatemala. In Guatemala, I worked as a sign painter on the road and as a driver and brewer for Gallo brewery. I was a brewer.  I’ve worked as a driver in the produce industry in Los Angeles for 30 years and now I’m working with donated produce! My favorite thing about working for Food Forward is the schedule. In my free time, I enjoy being with my family and fishing.

 I am originally from the northern part of Guatemala, the countryside. Growing up, my family had a dairy farm and we had to milk 100 cows before going to school in the morning. My father was an agricultural business engineer and I followed his steps  becoming an agricultural business engineer. I moved to the USA in 1991. Before Food Forward, I worked for a church and developed a food recovery program similar to the Wholesale Recovery Program  Luis and I competed for the same donations at the Wholesale Market, and he always told me that he had a big plan (the Pit Stop!) and we were going to work together. I always have the willingness to help those in need and that was one of the big reasons I came to Food Forward. We can help the world be a better place by providing for those who experience food insecurity with a smile and respect. When I’m not working, I’m a churchgoer so that occupies most of my time. I also like to cook and spend time with my family and friends.

Vivian Poonsopin was born and raised in North Hollywood climbing trees, digging holes, and getting stuck in each. She went to college for a bachelor’s in animation, later again for computer graphics but eventually fell into event production. During her time working at festivals, she saw firsthand the piles of waste left behind and the impact on the environment, and something inside her shifted. It was serendipity that she was riding her bike down the same street as the Food Forward office and saw the van parked on the street. She looked Food Forward up online and from then knew she had to be part of it. When not roaming around the offices she can be found watching cartoons, playing video games, or tending to random animals and plants in her life.

Betsy hails from Oklahoma and spent her childhood summers selling produce at farmers markets and devouring her mom’s homemade plum jam, made with plums her family gleaned from trees on country roads. She ventured to Boston for college, where she studied Sociology and Global Health and Health Policy and mentored Boston youth outside the classroom. After graduation and one too many April snowstorms, she moved to Los Angeles to direct Better Angels, a nonprofit supporting low-income L.A. high school students through the college admissions and transition process. Her students, who often battled hunger and poverty, confirmed her desire to work toward a better local food system for communities in need. Betsy began volunteering at an urban farm in her neighborhood and eventually found Food Forward. When she’s not supervising Food Forward’s stellar volunteers, you can find her hiking, road tripping with a good playlist, and being a good auntie to the many dogs in her life.

Samantha Teslik was born and raised in the SFV in a home surrounded by citrus, avocado & stone fruit trees. She left the valley to spend 6 years living in Hoboken, New Jersey to earn a Masters Degree in Food Studies from NYU and manage youth education programs at NYC’s Greenmarkets, but always knew (particularly during winters) that Southern California would be where she called home again. She is thrilled to bring her experience educating students about the importance of eating fresh, local produce to Food Forward and help folks further appreciate and engage with the bounty of regional fruit trees we are blessed to live among. When she isn’t advocating others to harvest fruit & fight food waste, Samantha enjoys camping and hiking, cooking and eating, petting cats, and spending time with her growing family.

I’m originally from Nayarit, Mexico. I grew up in a small town called Borbollon in the municipality of Compostela. Before I came to this country I studied, worked in agriculture and enjoyed playing soccer in my free time. Before I came to Food Forward I worked in a produce company as a driver for about 16 years. I got interested in working for Food Forward when I learned about the mission. I truly appreciate that our produce is distributed 100% free and is available for everyone in the community no matter their race. When I am not working I enjoy running in the park and when I am home I find many things to do in my free time, such as mowing the lawn and organizing everything.

Penelope is from Los Angeles. Her love of organizing around food justice comes after a career in arts education. She enjoys bringing her creative, innovative and artistic energy to everything she does. She received her BA in Fine Art from UCLA in 2017 and has worked with students and communities across the LA, bringing them opportunities to create art and joy. In July of 2020, she became inspired by mutual aid efforts across the city and launched a weekly food distribution program in her hometown of El Sereno called the People’s Pantry LA. Penelope’s great grandparents migrated from Guanajuato to Southern California in the 1930’s and worked in the citrus fields of Riverside County. Lemon picking is in her lineage, and she was destined to coordinate citrus harvests!! When she is not working she’s most likely taking naps with cats, shooting an experimental film, rollerskating, reading and/or eating soup.

I am from the department of Totonicapán in western Guatemala. I come from a family of farmers, we planted corn, wheat, beans, etc. When I was little I used to tell my parents that I would do this on a larger scale. Eventually, I immigrated to the United States and started working in the produce industry and I believe my dream came true. I worked in produce for 20 years. Since I was a kid my parents taught me to share with those in need and this was the main reason why I decided to work at Food Forward. When I’m not working., I enjoy running, going to the park with my kids, and spending time with my family.

Naoko Ward grew up in El Paso and attended college at UT Austin, going against the California flood to work at Food Forward. After reading Freegans, she checked out a grocery store dumpster, saw a bunch of perfectly ripe bananas, and decided to delve into food waste. Her experience with food systems includes working for UT Austin’s Farm Stand, as well as farmers markets across Austin. When not working, she’s probably having a dance party in her room, cooking vegetarian food, or walking around Boyle Heights. 

Christopher hails from the great midwestern city of St. Louis, Missouri. Passionate about photography, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Photojournalism (2007) and is a avid street photographer in his spare time. Besides his main interest, Christopher also has a revolving set of hobbies including playing music (bass), DJing (all vinyl), pinball, disc golf, biking and collecting retro video games. A turning point in his life came when volunteering at The Alameda County Food Bank in Oakland, California in 2012. Christopher decided right then and there that his goal in life was to use his skills to help people (thus starting his path to working at a non-profit organization). Christopher also holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology (2016) and his last job was teaching art to adults with disabilities at a day program in St. Louis. Christopher currently resides in Ojai, California with his girlfriend Chloe and dog Jake.

Luis Yepiz has early memories of the Sonoran Desert, Yaqui Valley. Tumbling through “mountains” of wheat, sorghum, soy and millet — juxtaposed against the harsh realities of food politics, artificial shortages, and price fixing — is where he learned first hand how fresh grown produce is such a vital commodity and so precious. Growing up Angeleno, he split his time between the family diesel mechanic business and volunteering in public radio. His family’s prolific garden in the San Gabriel Valley made overcoming food insecurity, sharing abundance, and working with those fighting hunger a natural fit. Luis brings to Food Forward his business management background as well as years working with wholesale market recovery, food banks, farmers markets, and charities throughout Southern California. He is also an award-winning poet and operatic tenor.

Amir first joined Food Forward in 2013. He was raised in his family’s restaurants in Echo Park, working as soon as he was old enough to stop breaking dishes, and eventually owned his own Latin American Fast Food joint on Hollywood Blvd. His experience includes over 16+ years of accounting and finance as well as 4+ years as Food Forward’s Operations Director, where he did a little bit of everything and helped us grow from an organization of 6 employees to 24. With the birth of his son, Remy in 2017, Amir took a 2 year hiatus to be a semi-decent homemaker and awesome stay at home dad! He is excited and grateful to once again walk the zesty halls of the Fruit Cave and rejoin his fellow Fruitopians!