Alumni panel: Food systems careers
Katie Freedman ’05 is the Community Health and Food Programs Director at Healthy Acadia. In this role, she provides leadership for collaborative programs and initiatives that support local food systems, health equity, community food security, public health nutrition, local food procurement, community gardening, farms, and farmers’ markets. Her work includes guidance and oversight of Healthy Acadia’s Food for All initiatives, including our Maine SNAP-Ed and Healthy Eating, Active Living programs, Downeast Restorative Harvest, the Downeast Gleaning Initiative, and other initiatives focused on increasing food security in Hancock and Washington counties by providing citizens of all ages with access to healthy food, regardless of income.
Anna Karns ’25 is the Sustainable Foods Coordinator for Havana Restaurant Group. She is a passionate labor justice advocate committed to working with communities to build food sovereignty and community resilience. Her work primarily consists of building lasting relationships with local food producers and increasing use of local products across produce, dairy, and meat products. This season she is working with producers so that they can rely on HRG’s demand and better supply them. She is also involved in looking into the sustainability of products coming from large broadliners.
Alex Fouliard ’13 works as the Farm Business Planning Program Manager at Maine Farmland Trust. Alex came to appreciate the role food plays in our lives and communities while studying sustainable ag. and human ecology at College of the Atlantic and farming with her partner’s family in Downeast Maine. She started working for Maine Farmland Trust in 2013 and enjoys working with farmers to figure out the best plans for their individual business.
Malia Demers ’18 works with Food Corps as a Program Coordinator, helping to create sustainable school gardens that function as experiential learning classrooms. She co-coordinates Maine’s direct service program, communicating program updates to service members, service sites, state partners, and the public, as well working with state partners to ensure that school professionals are equipped to provide students experiential food and garden education, particularly with an equity lens.