Executive Board Leadership Team
Linda Royster
Executive Board President
Linda Royster retired from corporate life recently. Her educational journey started on Chicago's South Side where she graduated from Chicago Vocational High School and the Illinois Institute of Technology. After earning her PhD in Counseling Psychology, she returned to Illinois to work for notable companies such as Arthur Anderson, Trans Union Corporation, and United Parcel Service. Linda is a lifelong gardener, learner, and traveler. She now gardens in Gary, Indiana and travels across the world, spending most of her time exploring Asia.
Favorite Book: Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own
Email: llouiseroyster@gmail.com
Rebecca Koetz
Executive Board Vice President
Rebecca has long had a passion for ecological work, earning her Master’s in Forestry and Natural Sciences from Purdue University and now creating a litany of new urban farm programming in her role as Lake County Purdue Extension’s Urban Agriculture Educator. You will often find Rebecca holding her newborn daughter while leading farm tours, teaching elementary students how to garden and running a wide variety of urban farming workshops and projects.
Favorite food: Mushroom saag
Favorite food podcast: Earth Eats
Food systems focus: Supporting local farmers
Email: busser@purdue.edu
Cheryl Dornberg
Executive Board Treasurer
As a Culinary Nutrition Expert and Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Cheryl is passionate about using the power of food to achieve optimal health and believes that a healthy lifestyle begins in the kitchen. Her focus is on empowering others to prepare more from-scratch meals at home and to seek out more locally-sourced, nutrient-dense ingredients.
Favorite food: Sautéed greens
Favorite food movie: The Biggest Little Farm
Food systems focus: Food security and accessibility
Relevant links: Mrs. Dornberg’s Culinary Experience, Facebook, Instagram
Email: cheryl@mrsdornbergs.com
Alicia Pellegrino
Executive Board Secretary
Alicia has a passion for environmental stewardship and community engagement. She has been involved through her professional and community leadership roles in developing and managing community-based programs, facilitating community engagement, and coordinating partners to achieve successful projects. In her current role at Shirley Heinze Land Trust, Alicia works alongside a diverse set of partners in both rural and urban communities to increase access to resources and further conservation initiatives. Alicia enjoys hiking the trails of northwest Indiana and trying new recipes and restaurants with her husband.
Favorite food: Homemade pasta with sauce made of tomatoes from the garden
Favorite food book: To Boldly Grow
Food systems focus: Farmland Preservation and Land Access, Conservation Practices
Relevant link: Heinze Trust
Email: apellegrino@heinzetrust.org
Executive Board
Amber Zimmer
Executive Board Member
Bio coming soon!
Email: amber@nwifoodcouncil.org
Major Rebecca Simmons
Executive Board Member
Bio coming soon!
Email: rebecca.simmons@usc.salvationarmy.org
Matthew Wells
Executive Board Member
As the Director of External Engagement and Partnerships for Purdue University NW, Matt has built his career on weaving together relationships and projects that build capacity and accelerate progress. He has a clear vision to build on burgeoning resources of Northern Indiana to create a farm-to-table ecosystem that benefits students and attracts families to the region for generations to come.
Favorite food: Doro Wat
Favorite food book: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Food systems focus: Economic development
Email: wells84@pnw.edu
Joe Skibbie
Executive Board Member
Joe Skibbie is founder of JRS Mar/Com and Chief Plowman at Beats, Beds & Browns. Joe's hope is to share the knowledge, joy and wellness that comes from growing his own food via the #100kin10yrs campaign. This ambitious movement aims to connect 100,000 people with agriculture in the next decade. It's not just a number, but a promise to cultivate a community that understands, appreciates and advocates for our food systems. Connecting individuals with Free Seed Kits to connect them with their homestead roots. Whether growing from a cup on the counter or in acres of open fields, growing your own food is a right worth fighting for. Joe hopes to add his gifts to the already impressive efforts of the NWI Food Council.
Food system focus: Food Insecurity
Favorite Food Book: https://www.amazon.com/Tender-Cook-His-Vegetable-Patch/dp/1607740370
Email: jskibbie@beatsbedsbrowns.com
Gina Avila
Executive Board Member
Gina is passionate about cultivating relationships and is excited to foster community connections for NWI Food Council. She is a Community Development Educator with Purdue Extension in Porter County. In her prior role, Associate Director, of NWI Area Health Education Center, she collaborated with community partners to create experiential opportunities to help provide readiness skills for health profession students soon entering the work field. Programming included training on food for health and well-being.
Favorite food: Homemade flautas
Favorite food book: Rotten
Food systems focus: Food justice
Email: ghavila@purdue.edu
Janelle White
Executive Board Member
Janelle White currently serves as the Director of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs at the University of Chicago and as an Associate for the Consortium for Inclusion & Equity, LLC (CIE), an integrated diversity management consulting firm. Her work with CIE has allowed her to work with education professionals, businesses, and nonprofits to explore concepts of justice, inclusion, and equity within their organizational leadership, curriculum development, and community engagement initiatives. Throughout her career, she has been committed to fostering a sense of community and belonging for underrepresented populations, disrupting bias throughout educational systems, and advocating for historically underrepresented communities.
Favorite food: Cheesecake
Favorite movie: The Wizard of Oz
Food system focus: Food Justice & Food Insecurity
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janelle-white/
Email: janellelovewhite@gmail.com
Lucero Donato Martinez
Executive Board Member
Lucero is a seasoned culinary professional that has moved back to her birthplace in Gary, Indiana from Chicago. She’s closely worked with non-profit organizations to promote local small businesses. Lucero has always been an advocate for good food and feeding our kids a colorful plate. The agriculture oligopoly has made her focus on community sustainability, shop local, support the environment to establish a strong economy that services its people.
Favorite food: Spicy coconut curry anything and chiles rellenos
Favorite food books: The Omnivore's Dilemma and Salt Fat Acid Heat
Food systems focus: A small community of people that aim for a sustainable environment, serving its community for future generations.
Relevant link: LinkedIn
Email: aplateatthepark@gmail.com
Daryn Pobanz
Executive Board Member
As the meatmonger for a 7th generation family farm called Jake’s Country Meats, Daryn travels all over NWI, Chicago and SW Michigan building connections and relationships with farmers, chefs and everyday customers. Daryn believes in the power of raising animals on pasture–that regenerative grazing practices are key to creating healthy animals, healthy people and a healthy environment.
Favorite food: Cubano sandwich
Favorite food movie: Sacred Cow Documentary
Food systems focus: Regenerative Ag
Relevant links: Jake's Country Meats, Instagram
Email: sales.jakescountrymeats@gmail.com
Grace Benninger
Executive Board Member
As an urban planning and geographic information systems professional, Grace has a strong background in analyzing spatial data and trends to aid local governments in decision-making processes and achieve regional goals. Living on a llama farm and being an avid beekeeper, gardener, homebrewer, and cheesemaker, Grace understands the importance of fostering connections between those who grow and consume food as well as building equitable and inclusive food systems in Northwest Indiana.
Favorite Food: Vietnamese Pho
Favorite Food Podcasts: The Bearded Butchers; Business Insider’s So Expensive
Food System Focus: Food Policy and Programming
Email: gbenninger@nirpc.org
Staff Members
Anne Massie
Co-Executive Director & Immediate Past Board Executive President
Anne has a tenacious appetite for all things local food. From owning and operating her own diversified vegetable farm to leading significant non-profit work on food insecurity and farm viability, Anne has fully committed herself to changing our local food system as we know it.
Favorite food: Cabbage
Favorite food movie: Kiss the Ground
Food systems focus: Policy
Email: info@nwifoodcouncil.org
Dr. Virginia Pleasant
Co-Executive Director
Virginia loves food systems work so much, she earned her PhD studying it from Purdue University. From urban homesteading with her husband and 3 young children, to her role as Interim Director of Food Systems Initiatives at Purdue Northwest, Virginia has committed herself to dozens of initiatives for the council, the community and across the state. She works to weave networks along the food value chain- from farmers, to eaters, and all points in between to build capacity, collaboration, and community resilience.
Favorite food: Tomatoes fresh off the vine
Favorite food book: Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience
Food systems focus: holistic systems, food justice
Email: virginia@nwifoodcouncil.org
Anna Martinez
Region Roots Hub Coordinator
It all started with making small batch kombucha in her home, and next thing she knew Anna was bottling and boxing hundreds of jars of locally made “booch” in Gary, Indiana each week, supplying small businesses throughout NWI and eventually even opening her own cafe and kombucha bar in the Miller Beach neighborhood. Anna is deeply committed to improving healthy lifestyle options for families in NWI, and lifting up local food entrepreneurs in the process!.
Favorite food: Seafood tacos
Favorite food books: Anything by Dr. Perlmutter
Food systems focus: Food Security
Email: anna@nwifoodcouncil.org or info@regionroots.org
Becca Tuholski
Local Food Access Coordinator
Becca Tuholski has an undeniable passion for local food systems, resilient community building, and community education. From her time as an Agricultural Science Teacher at LaPorte High School, to her ongoing career as a beginning farmer alongside her husband on their farm (Tuholski Produce), to her current role as the Local Food Access Coordinator with the NWI Food Council—Becca is dedicated to strengthening our food system from the ground up.
Favorite food: Homemade pizza with farm veggies!
Favorite food book: The Power of a Plant: A Teacher's Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools
Food systems focus: Food justice, farm to institution
Email: becca@nwifoodcouncil.org
Alyssa Meehan
Operations Associate
Bio Coming Soon!
Email: accounts@nwifoodcouncil.org
Porchea McGuire
Equity & Engagement Coordinator
Bio coming soon!
Email: porchea@nwifoodcouncil.org
Allyssa McAley
Farm-to-Chef & Logistics Coordinator
My love for food started at a very young age. I began working in the restaurant industry and attending culinary classes in high school. After moving to Chicago and experiencing shopping at farmer's markets I learned just how diverse real food actually is. I now live on a homestead of my own growing and preserving a large portion of my family's food and raising ducks and chickens for eggs. My passion now is cooking with seasonal whole foods either grown by myself or locally sourced,
Favorite food: Anything Asian or Indian inspired
Favorite food book: Ball Book of Canning and Preserving.
Food system focus: Food security and supporting local farmers
Email: allyssa@nwifoodcouncil.org
Veronica Jalomo
Farm to School Coordinator
Having grown up as a child migrant farm worker, Veronica has a special connection to and understanding of the importance of equity in a food system that so often overlooks both the farmers and the food insecure. As a food system value chain professional, she currently leads farm-to-school initiatives in the northwest region of Indiana in her role as Farm to School Coordinator for the NWI Food Council. She also leads efforts with the new Lake Michigan Food System Innovation Hub, a multi-state collaboration with Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Veronica has cultivated a career in sustainable food systems serving vulnerable communities and underserved populations. Through her previous role as Community Wellness Coordinator and Local Foods & Community Garden Specialist with Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program, she had the unique opportunity to build local coalitions to enact equitable initiatives impacting two regions of the state of Indiana. Through the years she has learned how to traverse complex communities to cultivate shared visions and execute successful initiatives. She has established a solid record of impact. She has experience in the development and evaluation of policy, systems, and environmental strategies—including food system policy development. She has been instrumental in helping create community and urban gardening networks in both Lafayette and East Chicago, Indiana; as well as introducing and growing the Great Lakes Apple Crunch in secondary schools and after-school programs. With her background in addressing food access and food systems, she supports and guides community agencies, schools, and farmers in the creation of a more sustainable and equitable food system.
In addition to her current role, Veronica serves on the Indiana AgrAbility Advisory Team, and Indiana Grown for Schools Network Steering Committee, and is a member of the Indiana Value Chain Network.
Favorite food: Arroz con pollo (chicken and rice)
Favorite food book: Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel
Food systems focus: Food access and security, food chain workers rights and well-being
Relevant links: Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program, Facebook
Email: veronica@nwifoodcouncil.org
Advisory Board Members
Nupur Aurora
Advisory Board Member
Nupur was instrumental in the exponential growth of the Food Bank of NW Indiana, transforming the small non-profit into a highly functioning organization. She has an intense passion for feeding the community and addressing some of the toughest challenges of systemic poverty especially now in her role as Director of Finance & Operations at Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County.
Gabrielle Biciunas
Advisory Board Member
Gabrielle has been shaping the way our communities develop for the better for over several years as the Long Range Planner for the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission and now as Business Development Manager for Commonwealth Engineers. She’s always recognized food and farming as some of the most important pieces of successful, long range community planning built on equity and resilience.
