For more information, contact:

Cheryl Nechamen, Coordinator, 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Cheryl@farmandfood.org

Meet the 100 Mile Diet Challenge organizers:

Ella Braco
Ella is a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student that likes to cook and eat healthy food that supports sustainable agriculture and local economies. She is starting her own café on campus, the Terra Café, to educate students about these issues in a fun and inviting atmosphere.

Anna Campas
Anna is a registered architect, professional engineer and accredited
green building designer (LEED) with NYS Office of General Services. She is
currently working on greening the Governor's Mansion and is an active
member of the American Institute of Architects Committee on the
Environment.

Karisa Centanni
Karisa is a life long resident of the Capital District. She gardens in a Community Garden plot in downtown Troy with her sisters, where she's able to grow a lot of her own food,
but happily supplements her local food supply with grains, dairy
products, and fruits at the Honest Weight Food Co-op. She is a member-owner
of, and employed by, Honest Weight as their Education Coordinator. She
loves cooking, making photos, and watching movies.

Anna Dawson
Anna is a retired Family and Consumer Science teacher, an organic farmer and a small scale food processor.  She has spent the past ten years experimenting with freezing and vacuum packaging local foods as highlighted on her website www.ourhometownfoods.com.  Her passion is to teach others in her kitchen or in community kitchens to preserve the harvest using this process. 
 
Debbie Forester
Debbie lives in Niskayuna with her husband and two sons.  She has grown food in her backyards, wherever they were, for too many years to count.  She is one of the founders of Roots and Wisdom, a youth agriculture and community service program in Schenectady County.

Ruth Lamb
Ruth has just had a book published entitled, "At the End of the Road: Reflections on Life in an Adirondack Valley".  The book is a memoir about her family’s fifteen years living in an isolated valley in Hague where they adventured with the wildlife and sought to live simply. 

Liz Lukowski
Liz is a Geologist at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.  Liz, an active member of the Regional Farm & Food Project, lives, works, and eats in the City of Albany.  She believes that eating locally is one way to bring "power to the people."  She has a community garden plot along the Normanskill and is especially proud of her sweet corn this year. Sketcher (Liz's dog) prefers to eat local too and is always encouraging her to put more squash and blueberries in his meals!  

Elizabeth Marks
Elizabeth is the Coordinator for the Hudson Mohawk RC&D Council.  Elizabeth loves purchasing local produce from roadside stands and growing vegetables at the community garden in Chatham.  Her most exciting local, low-input dish was made from a butternut squash that grew out of the compost bin at the USDA Service Center in Ghent.  The squash only traveled 15 miles from field to fork.

Cheryl Nechamen
Cheryl is the Coordinator of the 100 Mile Diet Challenge and chairs the Regional Farm & Food Project.  She talks about the many benefits of locally grown food to anyone who will listen.  She loves to hike and ski with her family.  In her spare time, Cheryl is a molecular biologist at the Wadsworth Center.

Dick Shave
Dick lives in Schenectady, NY with his wife, Mary Jane. and two daughters.  He is currently a homemaker, and has many  interests and inclinations (cooking, sustainable agriculture, social justice, complex systems, energy crisis analysis) that make the 100 mile diet a learning experience.

Sheree
Sheree lives in Rensselaer County.  She eats from her backyard and local farm produce as much as possible, year round.  “Good for me, good for local farms, good for the planet.  'nuff said?”

Terri Tuers
Terri is a project manager for New York State Energy Research & Development Authority where she manages a state-wide, K-12 energy education program. Terri lives in Watervliet with her hubby, Rick. They eat fresh local produce from their garden and are often seen at the local farmer's markets. Terri is passionate about teaching teachers and kids about the dwindling fossil fuels and how energy is directly tied to the food we eat. Both are active in sustainability, environmentalism, and finding new ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

The 100 Mile Diet Speakers Bureau

We would love to come and talk to groups about the 100 Mile Diet. Contact Cheryl Nechamen, Cheryl@farmandfood.org if you are interested in booking someone from our speakers bureau.