Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowship

Candace and Lucas Wiggin are proud owners of Maple Grove Farm of Afton, a three-generation farm that produces 100% pure maple syrup in northeastern Tennessee. The Wiggin family has been producing small-batch maple syrup for over 40 years in Tennessee and is passionate about preserving Appalachian culture through maple syrup production and educational opportunities. Each January, the family welcomes over 300 visitors to the farm to tour the entire sugaring process. In November 2025, Lucas and Candace planned and hosted the first-ever Tennessee Maple School in order to provide tree syrup expertise to backyard producers. Their long-term goals include establishing a Tennessee Maple Syrup Producers Association to promote best practices, advance education and research, and increase public awareness of Tennessee-produced maple products.

Jasmine Thompson is a naturalist, conservationist, and environmental storyteller based in northwestern Pennsylvania. She is the founder of Woolbank Conservancy, a demonstration farm and nonprofit dedicated to making conservation accessible through agroforestry apprenticeships and place-based storytelling. Her work explores the intersections of Black agrarian traditions, forest foodways, and ecological restoration, with projects ranging from freshwater mussel recovery to oak regeneration and nut foraging. A lifelong forager, Jasmine spends each autumn gathering and processing acorns, walnuts, and hickories by hand, studying how forests continue to feed communities. Her current project, The Nut Line, maps Black woodland food traditions across Appalachia, honoring nourishment, memory, and relationship with the land.

Chef Ke is a West Virginia based chef, culinary entrepreneur and community food advocate known for elevating Soul Food and Appalachian traditions through locally sourced, farm to table cuisine. Originally from Alexandria, VA Chef Ke has made her mark and influence in Charleston, West Virginia through her catering and farm to table dinners. Best known as the first African American female chef to host a farm to table dinner in celebration of Juneteenth in the culinary history of West Virginia. Chef Ke’s culinary style blends community, culture and celebration while emphasizing food as a tool for community connection, education and economic empowerment. Her work highlights the importance of honoring Black foodways while supporting local, small urban and minority farmers. In the future Chef Ke hopes to continue her farm to table dinners on her own farm while continuing to uplift her community through healthy eating habits, agriculture and food education. 

Siara is an autodidact whose civic engagement and independent study have shaped her more deeply than traditional education. In response to personal health challenges, she turned to ancestral knowledge systems. She now embraces land stewardship and ancestral culinary practices as pathways to personal and collective healing.

Takia holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Tufts University and a Permaculture Design Certificate. She designs and maintains Kinfolk Heritage Farm’s growing spaces, with a strong focus on soil regeneration. Her work integrates land liberation, food sovereignty, and birth equity, and she is currently pursuing licensure as an out-of-hospital midwife.

Chris Smith lives in western North Carolina and is the executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing nonprofit working to celebrate food and farming. Within this work, Chris collaborates on The Heirloom Collard Project, hosts a seasonal Trial to Table event series, and publishes Crop Stories, a crop-specific multimedia project. His book, The Whole Okra, won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2020, and he is the co-host of The Okra Pod Cast. In 2023 Chris received the Organic Educator Award from The Organic Growers School and was named a Champion of Conservation by Garden & Gun. More info www.utopianseed.org.

Marcus West is from Cowee West’s Mill Community in Franklin, North Carolina in Macon County. His family roots have been here in the Appalachian Mountains since the early 1800’s in Western North Carolina. His family ties are the West family of Cowee, Nc. The Mingus family of the Oconaluftee Community in Cherokee, North Carolina, the Powell family of Bryson City, North Carolina, and the Rogers family of Cullowhee North Carolina. He and his father Adam West Jr. still carry on their family’s farm traditions today. He is 40 years old and is blessed to have his father with him at 81 years old who taught him how to butcher and raise his own beef, and grow his own crops to survive.

Sam is a proud native of Lee County, Kentucky where she learned about planting by moon sign as a young child from her farming grandparents and parents. She began working for the New Opportunity School for Women (NOSW) in 2024 as the Development & Communications Coordinator, a welcome addition to the NOSW staff after an impactful term as a board member, helping to guide the organization through the changes brought on by the Covid pandemic. For almost 40 years, NOSW has been working in the region to uplift and preserve Appalachian culture. In addition to teaching gardening, nutrition, health, and canning, NOSW also helps women strive for their own goals. Such skills are vital now more than ever. Sam holds a Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Appalachian literature from Berea College, a diploma which helped her better understand not just the region, but the importance of her own culture. Sam enjoys cooking, gardening, reading, writing, and good music.

Described in Black By God – The West Virginian as “her ancestors’ wildest dream,” Ronnie Marie Tartt is a shining example of the culmination of love, resilience and ingenuity in human form; a woman who has become a mother to her entire community through her food, instruction and example. As a wife, mother, homemaker and caretaker in McDowell County, West Virginia, Tartt gleaned from the matriarchs in her family that food is far more than sustenance, but more of a testament of strength, resilience and creativity. She honors her elders by continuing the foodways practices of growing her own food, such as okra, beets, greens, beans and tomatoes and preserving them by canning and drying to ensure her family and the surrounding community are well fed, well prepared and understand the necessity of food sovereignty in her often under-resourced region of Central Appalachia. Perhaps the greatest strength Ronnie Marie possesses is her willingness and eagerness to share these often forgotten foodway practices with her community by sharing her skills and knowledge to anyone willing to understand the critical role food plays in health and family. In her most recent role as an entrepreneur, Ronnie Marie has launched the inaugural product, Mama’s Sauce, with Appalachian Gold, a Black-owned company dedicated to celebrating the rich agricultural and culinary cultures of Appalachia.

Dr. Mehmet Öztan is a Turkish seed keeper, farmer, and a public scholar. He co-founded the culturally significant seed company, Two Seeds in a Pod, with his wife, Dr. Amy S. Thompson in 2013 in Tampa, Florida. The company’s farm was relocated to Reedsville, West Virginia, in2019, where it serves as a learning space and a gateway to exploring more than fifty food crops for their cultural significance, culinary uses, climate adaptability, and significance related to seed and food justice. Dr. Öztan is also the founder of the Anatolian Seeds Recovery and Preservation Project (ANATOHUM) that aims to re-vitalize, preserve, document, and promote the traditional seeds of Türkiye. Since 2013, he has introduced more than 120 open-pollinated seed varieties to the American seed market for home gardeners, small farmers, and chefs to grow and to use in recipes.
As a minoritized seed industry professional, Dr. Öztan continuously thinks, writes, and creates around issues of racism, discrimination, patriarchy, favoritism, grief, and extractive labor practices in the American seed industry. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Michigan State University and is currently a Service Assistant Professor in the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences at West Virginia University.

Jim Embry is the proud descendent of formerly enslaved Africans who were brought across the Appalachian Mountains to Madison County Kentucky around 1800 and who provided for him a legacy as agrarian intellectual activists. He began his activism as a 10-year-old in the civil rights movement and has participated in all of the social justice movements of the past 65 years with an emphasis on food and agriculture systems. His contributions have included such efforts as: founding Good Foods Co-op in 1972; establishing Sustainable Communities Network in 2006; helping organize Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance and Cumberland Seed Commons in 2022; and in 2022 representing the USA for the seventh time as a delegate to Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Italy. In 2023, Jim received the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award which recognized his many years as a visionary leader and reaffirmed his premise that: “Because stolen land from Indigenous peoples and stolen labor of African peoples to do agriculture is the foundational contradiction of injustice in our nation, it is clear to me that resolving this contradiction of injustice deeply embedded in food and agriculture is also the fulcrum point for the much-needed transformation of our society.

Femeika Elliott, is the founder of the Rooted East Collective. She is a food educator, home gardener and herbalist. She is a Knoxville native by way of Louisiana as her Creole ancestry often influences her practice. Femeika is skilled in public service and resource allocation with nearly 10 years experience focusing on substance abuse, mental health, child welfare and the juvenile justice sector.
“Meik” loves speaking passionately about transforming your everyday dishes into healthy masterpieces using fresh ingredients to uplift the lifestyle of others. She started her health foods brand Meik Meals, in 2019 and continued to pivot in the entrepreneurial scene to address major health crisis within the black community such as mental health, postpartum medical and food apartheid. She enjoys being a social justiceprenuer and advocate for marginalized communities as Black health, liberation and restoration remains at the forefront of her vision. Elliott holds a Masters and undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from Middle Tennessee State University with a concentration in Social Work.

She is also the founder of the Lotus Program Experience—a full spectrum wellness program for women experiencing infertility, pregnancy, birth and loss.

Jason B. Tartt, Sr is an entrepreneur, farmer, business owner and community servant most passionate about exposing the fortune Appalachia possesses, to enrich our communities, families and build sustainable business opportunities for future generations. Jason is originally from the Vallscreek community in McDowell County, West Virginia and a graduate of Bluefield High School, in Bluefield, WV. In 2010 Tart, Sr. returned to West Virginia with his family in tow after a military and Department of Defense contracting career. He has spent the better part of ten years working to understand, define and create awareness and education around the viability of agribusiness in the region. Tartt has been an ambassador for change, co-founding Economic Development Greater East (EDGE) and several other organizations to identify economic drivers and develop models around food and agriculture, clean energy, tourism and community health. He has developed training and experiential learning environments for budding food producers and future business owners.

Sergio Herrera makes Chilean beef empanadas and typical Chilean meals, all prepared in a traditional and artisanal way with a lot of love and dedication. Sergio’s work is rooted in his past, going back to his childhood when his grandmother would cook traditional foods to sell in their neighborhood in Chile. Currently, on occasions and when he has enough time, Sergio prepares his recipes to sell at work and in 2022, he was part of a community project named Blue Juniata Foodways organized by Community Partnerships. Sergio currently dedicates himself to making “empanadas de pino” or beef empanadas… one of the most typical dishes in his country. His foodways tradition has been popular among residents of Mifflin and Juniata counties, especially Chileans residing in the area. He is able to source all the supplies needed for his preparations from local farms and businesses in the areas of Mifflin County and Juniata County.

Yawah Awolowo is a culinary artist, community activist, and owner of the Organic Roots Cafe, the only organic vegan/vegetarian cafe in Knoxville, Tennessee. She works to share knowledge about food and agriculture, especially vegan and vegetarian cooking, and to foster “living cuisine” that prioritizes healthy minds and bodies within traditional foodways. Awolowo created the Urban Youth Network and Garden Program for children living in public housing, and she has served as Assistant Executive Chef at the Children’s Defense Fund’s Haley Farm and Workshop Center Manager at the Highlander Research and Education Center. She is a member of National Women in Agriculture and Vice President of Cottage House, Inc., a women’s organization that focuses on agriculture and youth. She has traveled the world as a community food activist and hosted a workshop at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Awolowo will be using the fellowship monies to support her Functional Foods project, educating the next generation in Appalachia on traditional foodways, nutrition, and “living cuisines.”

Siblings Rebecka and Travis Fugate are the owners and operators of Good For Your Heart Farms in Eastern Kentucky and passionate foodways practitioners. They were raised in a family of rich Appalachian foodways traditions, and Rebecka was inspired by her son’s dietary needs to begin growing and preserving her own food. Rebecka helped establish the Knott County Farmers Market, through an AmeriCorps VISTA position at Hindman Settlement School, and Rebecka and Travis are active members of Grow Appalachia. They regularly lead educational tours of the farm for young adults in the area and have twice hosted the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, which helps urban and rural participants discover their unique and shared heritages. Rebecka earned a Home-Based Micro Processing Certification to extend her community’s access to local food and teaches others how to preserve and can themselves. With the GoodForYourHeartFarm YouTube channel, Rebecka and Travis are sharing their knowledge and experience with a larger audience as well. Rebecka and Travis will use their fellowship funds to invest in a seed-saving vault, build a website, and support professional development opportunities that will assist them in their foodways work with K-12 students.

Wayne Riley is the founder and director of Kentucky’s Laurel County African American Heritage Center, an organization committed to conserving the traditions and legacy of the local African American community. Riley founded LCAAHC in honor of his late aunt, Lutisha Riley Bailey, and his work has had an immeasurable impact on the community, particularly inlocal foodways. He founded Heritage Farms and Heritage Community Commercial Kitchen, where residents can prepare food items for sale and learn about local traditions of preserving and canning. His regular barbecues and fish fries are well-known in the community. As director of LCAAHC, Riley has also coordinated oral history projects and summer youth programs and led community-wide events like birthday celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Riley is also the manager and director of the Grow Appalachia Food Security Project in Laurel County. He has completed the Brushy Fork Institute programs for Management of Non-Profit Organizations and Ordinary Communities Achieving Extraordinary Results, and he is a recipient of the Berea College Service Award. Riley will be using his fellowship funds to improve the heat and air system of the Heritage Community Kitchen.