recent partners & projects

Food Systems Leadership Network Mentor and Program Advisor

Community-based and emerging leaders often lack the resources and support to grow and expand in service to their communities. With a focus on systems leadership development, sharing and adapting cutting-edge program strategies, and building operational and management capacity, the Food Systems Leadership Network (FSLN) supports, celebrates, connects and invests in the individuals and organizations tirelessly working to transform their communities through food.

Miles is a national mentor for the FSLN Community Food System Mentorship Program. He has provided executive mentorship to community food systems' leaders throughout the United States. Working with immigrant, urban, and rural communities, Kitchen Table Consulting has focused on leadership development, organizational capacity building, implementing racial equity and social justice in program design and execution, and creating community power and sustainability.

As an Advisor for the FSLN Gamechangers Laboratory, Miles provides mentorship and coaching to a nationally selected team to catalyze breakthrough ideas, new approaches, and innovations for building community food security through community-based food systems.

Additionally, Kitchen Table Consulting developed program and outreach strategies for the National Good Food Network’s annual conference in New Orleans in 2021 and the FSLN Strategic Gathering in Oregon in 2022.

Farm to Food Assistance Community of Practice

Communities across the United States are impacted by daily struggles of food insecurity and hunger created by human and natural disasters. Each day and each event require a dedicated response to feed our communities. These challenges opened up an opportunity to redress historical inequalities by supporting and purchasing from local, historically disadvantaged producers to supply their food to those most in need. Kitchen Table Consulting worked with the Food Systems Leadership Network by designing and facilitating monthly calls for this national community of practitioners to share their expertise and experiences, and build a network of professional relationships to institutionalize equitable purchasing in the emergency food system.

Fresno-Merced Future of Food Innovation

In California’s ‘bread basket’, many of its residents and smaller, socially disadvantaged producers often lack access to the products that are grown in the region, as well as support for scaling up and marketing their products. Kitchen Table Consulting partnered with the Community Alliance for Family Farmers to support the development and viability of a regional food hub and develop a 5 county marketing plan for local producers and local consumers in the Central Valley.

Kitchen Table Consulting has supported the Fresno BIPOC Produce Food Hub to scale up its internal and external capacity to purchase and deliver products from the region’s primarily Hmong and Latino farmers to regional markets, food banks and school districts. Additionally, KTC worked with various partners and regional producers to assess their needs and opportunities and advise on how to best market their products and increase sales throughout the region.

North Coast Emergency Food Systems Partnership

In times of disaster and chronic food insecurity, local communities have learned they cannot always rely on our global food supply chain to feed themselves. In an effort to create systems for incorporating local and regional foods into the emergency food system, UC ANR joined forces with the Northern California counties and tribal lands of: Napa, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte to create a community of practice and implementation for a North Coast Emergency Food System. KTC provides leadership, design, and facilitation for the regional Community of Practice to convene both virtually and in person over a multi-year period to receive technical assistance, share learnings, and build effective relationships across the region.

Community Food Assessment and Summit

Periodically, different regions seek to re-assess the needs of their community-based food systems: What’s working and what needs improvement to increase the capacity and viability of its food producers, aggregators, distributors, and retailers?  And how can food access and equity be increased throughout the system?  Kitchen Table Consulting worked with the Rogue Valley Food Systems Network and its community stakeholders to answers these questions and designed and facilitated and in-person, interactive, food summit to hear from and document the input of the region. 

Local Food, Local Places

Numerous communities throughout the United States seek facilitated assistance to build their local food systems and revitalize their downtown and local economies.  Kitchen Table Consulting delivered technical assistance for the EPA Local Food, Local Places program to communities in Farmington, NM, Phoenix, AZ, Redding, CA, Sacramento, CA, Fort Collins, CO, and Culebra, PR.  By working with local steering committees, KTC helped bring together a diverse community of stakeholders for two days of facilitated community workshops — resulting in detailed Action Plans and follow up guidance for implementation.

In 2021-2022 Local Foods, Local Places supported 13 locally led, community-driven efforts to protect air and water quality, preserve open space and farmland, boost economic opportunities for local farmers and businesses, improve access to healthy local food, and promote childhood wellness.  

Coalition to End Homelessness

Homelessness is an endemic issue throughout the United States. Often community agencies find themselves working in silos with limited resources and lacking coordination. Kitchen Table Consulting was brought on board by the Health and Human Services Agency’s Housing Options for Mendocino (HOMe) Team, in partnership with the Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) to formulate an Action Plan for a comprehensive, collaborative, systematic approach to end homelessness in Mendocino County. KTC designed an extensive facilitated process with local community members, service providers, law enforcement agencies and government leaders from the Cities of Ukiah, Willits, and Fort Bragg to create a strategic plan, steps for immediate action, and continued collaboration through working group development and guidance.

Cannabis Economic Development

The legalization of recreational cannabis in California created the need for local governments and businesses to co-create plans to support equitable development of their local economies, farmers, manufacturers, and distributors.

Kitchen Table Consulting lead a facilitated process and ongoing design of multi-stakeholder collaborations to develop a 5 year strategic vision and plan for the County of Mendocino, local industry leaders, small farmers, and local businesses.

Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative

Healthy communities are active, participatory communities. Miles developed the Neighborhood Resilience Plan for the City of Ukiah, CA to empower neighbors in the creation of beautiful, safe, and healthy neighborhoods. Kitchen Table Consulting is the lead organizer in the engagement of multi-lingual and diverse neighborhoods to assess their needs, develop action plans, and implement strategies for neighborhood leadership and advocacy. An essential element of the process is facilitating collaboration between neighbors, City agencies, North Coast Opportunities – Community Action Agency, and relevant community stakeholders. Through door-to-door canvassing, neighborhood meetings, leadership trainings, and leadership coaching, Kitchen Table Consulting has helped form and develop the capacity of low-income, underrepresented, and historically marginalized neighborhoods to organize and advocate.

Community Health Improvement Plans

Agencies throughout the country are developing these plans to improve local health determinants and to be compliant with state and federal regulations. Miles and Healthy Mendocino partnered with Mendocino County’s Community Action Agency, Community Health Clinics, Health and Human Services Agency, and Ukiah Valley Medical Center to create a unique collaborative that developed and completed a cooperative Community Health Needs Assessment. With the Assessment’s results, Miles facilitated a community summit and multi-stakeholder action planning as the foundation for Mendocino County’s Community Health Improvement Plan. Later, Jen designed and facilitated several mission and visioning workshops with the multi-stakeholder collaborative to achieve a unified forward path.

Food Purchasing Policy and Legislative Analysis

The Animal Agriculture Reform Collaborative brings together sustainable farmer, environmental, public health, social and economic justice, and animal welfare organizations to bring about systemic change required to establish a sustainable and just animal agriculture system. KTC wrote two white papers for the group: One explored food purchasing policy at major restaurants, grocers, schools and hospital systems and analyzed barriers and opportunities; and the other, analyzed animal agriculture and antibiotics legislation across the United States over a 10-year period.