About Us

Michelle Gilman,
Founder & Team Lead

Michelle's areas of interest and expertise include weaving community food webs and working at the intersection of public health nutrition, regenerative food systems, and community development.

Her background includes nonprofit administration and operations in a range of programs including international development, urban agriculture, public education, and community nutrition. In 2016, after spending two years in Colombia, she returned to her home state of Massachusetts. There, her experience with Cooking Matters leading bilingual community cooking classes and healthy shopping tours sparked a passion for food as medicine. She has since received a Master’s degree in Global Public Health Nutrition which led her to study community participation in school gardens in Northwest Nicaragua and collaborate with farmers, local communities and nonprofits working to regenerate the Central American Dry Corridor.

In 2021, after volunteering and visiting with permaculturists in Puerto Rico and Colombia, she went on to complete her Permaculture Design Certificate and is now eager to continue promoting regenerative growing and eating practices near and far. After serving as an intern in 2021, she is now living at Sirius Ecovillage in Shutesbury.

She's driven to raise awareness about the role of diet in human, soil, and ecosystem health and through this, encourage and enable people to love their relationship with food. She’s truly in her element when leading food-based workshops in the kitchen, classroom, or garden. These skill sets and missions are what led her to develop the Food Fluency organization and educational program.