Jamie Stark (Executive Director, Co-founder) worked with farmers and church workers in El Salvador from 2013-15, where he was first inspired by the model of transitional employment through farming and cooking. During graduate school in journalism at Stanford University, Jamie began researching similar programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Farming Hope grew out of this research and partnership with neighbors experiencing homelessness and service providers. A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Jamie was raised next to the dairy air of big farms. He began as the gardener for Farming Hope, alongside co-founder and Bay Area native Kevin Madrigal, who was the nonprofit's first chef. Early program Apprentices described growing and cooking food as therapeutic, as tools that helped them give back and belong. This universal "need to be needed" continues to be Farming Hope's central theory of change.

Prior to joining the Farming Hope team, Andie opened and ran her family's multi-unit restaurant and catering business, Foundation Cafe, starting in 2012. She brings with her a deep understanding of operational management and is passionate about making real change in our broken food systems. Having grown up in San Francisco, she is energized by the impact Farming Hope has on the lives of our vulnerable neighbors and the community that we will build to support them.

After spending 5 years in bar and restaurant management, Allie is thrilled to bring her restaurant operations experience to serve the community. The COVID-19 pandemic reminded her of the unique opportunity restaurants have to impact all aspects of society. As a San Francisco native she is passionate about engaging the hospitality industry in community service, reducing food insecurity, and providing elevated food experiences to everyone.

Anselmo Gonzalez moved from Guerrero, Mexico to New York City to begin his career in the restaurant industry. He started as a prep cook at acclaimed seafood restaurant Esca and later moved into their pastry department. Anselmo uses his 15 years of experience from creative kitchens like Esca and San Francisco’s Coqueta and Boulevard to lead the ideation and execution of Farming Hope’s Community Meal production efforts. He finds joy in adapting recipes to use the wide variety of donated food received at the kitchen on any given day.

Haley Nielsen has raised nearly $8M over her decade of experience in nonprofit development, most recently in national environmental organizations. Haley grew up in kitchens and understands the power of food to create and sustain communities, learning from her father who is a chef. She is deeply inspired by Farming Hope’s vision of a more sustainable and equitable food system and looks forward to telling Farming Hope’s story to inspire more public and private funding.

Lyndsey is a Principal at Better Ventures, a pre-seed to seed stage venture capital firm based in Oakland, California. She invests in mission-driven founders leveraging science and technology to solve challenges across environmental sustainability, healthcare, and access to opportunity (education and workforce development). In addition to her role at Better Ventures, she is committed to supporting female and diverse founders and is an active volunteer and mentor to founders through All Raise. Prior to Better Ventures, Lyndsey spent over a decade in finance with UBS in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the US. She helped launch initiatives bringing together the bank’s sustainable investing and social impact offerings, and co-led a global program sourcing financial solutions to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. From corporates to early-stage startups, she is passionate about the role companies can play in catalyzing significant and scalable positive impact in the world.

Originally from Trinidad and Tobago. Twenty-five years’ experience in financial management at small to mid-stage startups in San Diego, Nashville, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Currently the Financial Controller at Rocksbox, Inc. Alumni of Nirvanx, Headspace, & Hims. Previously had Non Profit Financial Reporting experience with several Non Profits located in the Los Angeles. Farming Hope is my first Board.

Shelley Dyer is passionate about serving people, and excited to join Farming Hope’s Board as Vice-Chair. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology & Sociology from Spelman College and a Masters in Education from Georgia State University. Shelley is also the Quality Assurance Manager for the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, where she previously served as Program Manager for TNDC’s Healthy Corner Store Coalition. Shelley is an ancestrally guided cook, yoga teacher and fierce food justice advocate.

Michael (MD, MBA) is National Director of Behavioral Health at Hazel Health. He is a first generation immigrant, former middle school teacher, non-profit founder, and former board member of Success Centers San Francisco. He is passionate about building services, products, and partnerships that support wholistic health of marginalized adolescents and communities.

Lucia Gaia Pohlman is an artist, farmer, and climate justice activist. In her work consulting on climate change, she synergizes the financial, nonprofit, corporate, and public sectors to drive systemic change. Lucia has led several grassroots initiatives, including: the Rise to Resilience Challenge—a bi-state (NY & NJ) campaign that influenced climate policy on the federal and state levels; the Sunrise Movement NYC Hub—where Lucia led the political strategy and endorsements team leading up to the 2020 general election cycle, contributing to the election of 14 of the Hub’s 16 endorsed candidates into federal and state offices; and The Greenhouse Project—a community-led effort to reactivate a city block of abandoned greenhouses as a educational farm space in the Portola District of San Francisco. She's currently launching a collective farm and art center in San Luis Obispo, California with her partner, friends, and her sweet puppy Willow.

Xochi is the Sustainability Program Manager at the Alameda County Community Food Bank (ACCFB), and oversees a growing Food Recovery Program that works with hundreds of local donors to ensure that healthy food does not go to waste. Prior to her work at ACCFB, Xochi worked at Fair Trade USA, ensuring the livelihoods and labor rights of agricultural farmers and workers around the globe. In collaboration with People's Programs Oakland, Xochi founded a community garden in West Oakland to serve as a sustainable food source for low-income and houseless folks in the area. She is passionate about working collaboratively to build a better food system that serves the needs of the community at every point along the supply chain and is thrilled to join the Farming Hope Board to support the amazing work done by Apprentices and staff.

Ilana Lipsett is a community design strategist and Senior Program Manager at the Institute for the Future. Her work uses participatory design and community engagement to inform future-focused policy, economic, and international development. Ilana works to create public engagement opportunities for cities, developers, NGO’s, and creative communities around the globe to help imagine and design what the future of their cities could look like. She has facilitated civic imagination processes and activated spaces to catalyze community development; she was recognized by the Obama White House as a “Champion of Change in Civic Innovation" for her work co-founding freespace, an initiative to temporarily transform vacant spaces into community, cultural and arts hubs. Ilana has led diverse initiatives on the future of work and is a skilled facilitator, leading workshops to develop long-term strategies for civic projects. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio Graduate School, and is an active member of the Urban Land Institute.

Savannah Schoelen is proud to join the Farming Hope Board to help further their mission. Savannah graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Sociology, and minor in City and Regional Planning. She has been working at Downtown Streets Team for three years, and is now a Project Manager for their San Francisco branch. She oversees a volunteer work-experience program that supports and empowers the unhoused and at-risk population to become self-sufficient, while building a community they can call their own. She began as an Employment Specialist with DST in 2018, and cultivated a close partnership with Farming Hope during that time. Although she moved out of direct service work in her organization, she is passionate about Farming Hope’s mission and is thrilled to continue supporting their work.

Salim Zymet is a digital strategist with over a decade of experience who has helped manage multi-million dollar ad buys and raised millions of dollars online for progressive causes and candidates. Salim serves as the Vice President of Digital for Made to Save, an initiative of Civic Nation that is focused on vaccine equity and access in the communities hardest hit by the pandemic. Prior to that, Salim served as the VP of Digital for 50+1 Strategies, a bay-area based consulting firm focused on helping campaigns and causes win change in their communities. In 2016, as Digital Director for Hillary Clinton in Ohio, he managed a team of 9 staff and 5 full-time fellows that amassed millions of social media views, nearly 100,000 social media followers, 52,000 online volunteer shifts and 175,000 online event RSVPs within the 6 months of the coordinated campaign. Salim got his start in politics on the Obama 2012 campaign, where he served as a digital organizer in Southern California and Chicago in 2011. In 2012, he served as the deputy digital director in Ohio.