Photo Credit: Mavreen David Photography
Growing Chefs’ friends and family:
HAPPY HEALTHY 2021 to all! My name is Kara-Leigh Bloch and I have the honour to be the new Growing Chefs’ Executive Director. I am very excited to get to work with an amazing and inspiring group of staff, board members, volunteers, and their supportive partners, along with funders and collaborators. I have a deep respect and appreciation for local farmers and producers, chefs and restaurateurs, all who take pride in fresh, local, sustainable foods. Together, we will continue to connect chefs, kids, and communities, and promote healthy, just, sustainable food practices.
Originally from Edmonton, I grew up playing competitive women’s hockey and 10 pin bowling. I studied Human Ecology at the University of Alberta (Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Science) where we used an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to examine the many contexts of people’s lives. In particular, my focus was on the inter-relationships people have with their near environments: family, community, and environment. While completing my double degree, I spent a semester abroad at a sister school in Lille, France. This was the beginning of my love of exploring new places, food, and culture.
France changed my personal motto from “eat to live” to “LIVE TO EAT”. I jumped at the opportunity to live in a rural community with a host family that had two small children. My favourite memories are going to the Sunday marché, then making a big pot of soup with all the previous week’s leftover vegetables and enjoying it with a fresh baguette and some cheese. They crafted such impressive meals and exposed me to the French cuisine and the French way of life. When I tried my first freshly steamed artichoke (thinking they only came in a jar), it immediately became one of my favourite foods. My appreciation, relationship with, and my love of fresh local food deepened. After I graduated, I worked with the University of Alberta in Research on Aging Policy and Practice, then moved to Dominica/Grenada in the Caribbean to work with Help the Aged Canada as a Seniors Outreach Worker. Eventually in 2008, I settled in Vancouver to live in the same city as my now husband. By this time I was lucky enough to have lived in Montreal, Toronto, France, Dominica and travelled through Europe and Asia, and many other parts of the world!
It’s crazy to calculate it but I have been working in the non-profit sector for 20 years, mostly in senior housing and the homelessness sector. Most recently, I spent 11 years at Seniors Services Society of BC, 9 of those years as the Executive Director.
I have two daughters (four and six years old), and the sweetest furbaby, Kobe, a labradoodle. Over the last few years, I started to shift my focus and priorities, and decided to redirect my career in an equally meaningful sector to me: food security and community development.
I love food and wine, cooking, entertaining, and may have picked up the nicknames of “snack queen” or “Charcuterie Kara”. Since moving to Vancouver, I always say living here is like being on permanent vacation. The food and the activities around the city, from sea to sky, is the full meal deal.
My plan for the next few months as I onboard with Growing Chefs is to listen, to learn, and to take small meaningful steps through collaborating both inside and outside the food sector. Food connects us all. I see there is considerable opportunity to join forces with other social justice movements to dig into and address power imbalances and inequality and move towards food justice. I strongly believe that we need creative collective action to ensure that this new generation of kids learn to have healthy connections with food and understand its connectedness to our environment.
That’s it for now, I hope to meet you all at some point whether it be virtually or at long-awaited in-person gatherings when the time comes! We will have lots to celebrate!
Yours in community,
Kara-Leigh