At each conference, the Alaska Food Policy Council recognizes individuals and organizations with the “Alaska Food Hero Award.” Selection is based on work they have been involved with over the past 18 months. Awardees demonstrate a substantial impact on Alaska’s food system, transform an aspect of their community’s food system, and make a difference in Alaska’s prosperity, health, and self-reliance. We continue to honor the work of these Alaska Food Heroes, they are truly helping to build a resilient food system!
2025 Food Heroes
Don McNamara & Donna Rae Faulkner, Oceanside Farms
Don McNamara and Donna Rae Faulkner of Oceanside Farms in Homer have spent more than a decade growing food and knowledge on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Their 10-acre diversified farm produces vegetables, fruit, seed potatoes, and poultry, all while modeling what’s possible for small farms in rural Alaska. As hands-on educators and advocates for soil health and sustainable farming, they’ve supported Alaska Native and rural farmers with workshops, training videos, technical assistance, and even a published guide to Korean Natural Farming adapted for Alaska. Their deep commitment to mentoring and sharing practical, affordable tools continues to shape the future of farming across the state.
Melissa Chlupach, UAA Dietetics & Nutrition
Professor Melissa Chlupach is a leader in Alaska’s Indigenous and traditional food systems, education, and advocacy. As an Assistant Professor in the UAA Dietetics and Nutrition program and manager of the Alaska Traditional Kitchen, she brings people together to share, learn, and reconnect with ancestral knowledge. Her work spans curriculum development, research, and public health, with a strong focus on food sovereignty, Alaska Native culture, and nutrition. Melissa mentors students, uplifts Alaska Native voices, and fosters collaboration across communities and generations. A lifelong Alaskan and lifelong learner, she continues to shape inclusive, resilient food systems rooted in culture, healing, and shared knowledge.
Lorinda Lhotka, Alaska DEC Food Safety & Sanitation Program – Outstanding Service Award
Lorinda Lhotka has dedicated 25 years to strengthening food safety across Alaska as the Environmental Program Manager at the Department of Environmental Conservation Food Safety & Sanitation Program. Through her leadership of the Food Safety and Sanitation Program, she has worked closely with food entrepreneurs, farmers markets, and Tribal organizations to make food safety more accessible and inclusive. From expanding opportunities for small producers through the Cottage and Homemade Food exemptions, to helping integrate traditional foods like seal oil into elder care facilities, Lorinda blends scientific expertise with cultural sensitivity. Her collaborative approach and unwavering commitment to public health have made a lasting impact on Alaska’s food systems and the people they nourish.
2023 Food Heroes
Tanana Valley Farmers Market & Brad St.Pierre
The Tanana Valley Farmers Market showcases a plethora of Alaska Grown produce and plants, value-added goods, and Made in Alaska arts and crafts – all symbols of excellence. It is the oldest continually operating farmers market in Alaska and the only one located in its own permanent building. Their mission is to develop and promote Alaska’s agricultural, horticultural, and cottage industries, providing quality produce and products to the public. The market and the market Executive Director Brad St. Pierre were honored this year because of his continued commitment to supporting local farms and providing a space where farmers can directly reach consumers as well as providing educational opportunities like the “Children’s Market” and a space for broader community engagement through their “Chef at The Market” events.
Alutiiq Grown & Robbie Townsend Vennel
Alutiiq Grown is a collective of tribal and community-owned farms located in the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska off-road system communities of Larsen Bay, Old Harbor, Ouzinkie, Port Lions, and the city of Kodiak. Their mission is to increase the region’s food security by providing fresh and local foods to Elders and community residents. Alutiiq Grown is a program of the Kodiak Archipelago Leadership Institute. The program and its Executive Director Robbie Townsend Vennel were awarded the 2023 Food Hero Award for their commitment to diversifying and expanding the foodways available to their communities including programs from hydroponics, soil farming, raising chickens, and an expanding food hub that supports local farmers.
Calypso Farm & Ecology Center
Calypso Farm and Ecology Center is a non-profit, educational farm in Fairbanks, Alaska offering hands-on education programs for all ages, and growing fresh food for the community. They encourage local food production and environmental awareness through hands-on education in natural and farming ecosystems. They were awarded a 2023 Food Hero award for their multi-tiered approach to community engagement and food systems awareness that includes farmer training programs, summer camps, school gardens, the Southside Market, and an array of workshops that include Farming Intensives, Gardening, Fiber Arts and Woodworking. Their programs are continually expanding and bringing more pieces of the broader community into the conversation to help them see their space and importance in the future of the Interior’s foodways.
2022 Food Heroes
Cyrus Harris and the Maniilaq Association Traditional Foods
The team has worked together to provide niqipiaq to Elders at the Utuqqanaat Inaat long-term care facility in Kotzebue since 2015, through a state-permitted traditional food processing and cold storage facility known as the Siġḷuaq. In 2021, the team made years of hard work from countless helping hands a reality by achieving State of Alaska approval for serving seal oil. They used experimentation and a pasteurization process to reduce the risk of botulism, a rare but deadly foodborne illness linked with traditionally made seal oil. Now, the Elders at the Utuqqanaat Inaat are able to enjoy on-demand the seal oil they grew up eating daily. The team hopes to expand the list of safe and nutritious niqipiaq foods offered to the Elders and share lessons learned with other tribal groups across the continent interested in serving traditional foods in long-term care settings.
The Traditional Foods and Wellness Programs at APIA
The Traditional Foods and Wellness Programs at Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association work in tandem to carry out food-related initiatives and are dedicated to supporting the health and wellness of the Unangax people. Current projects are focused on working with Elders and community leaders to preserve traditional food knowledge and address food access and food security throughout the region.
One exceptional team member working with these programs is Sally Swetzof, from Atka, Alaska. Sally grew up living a subsistence lifestyle and has been able to pass this cultural knowledge down, not only to her children and grandchildren, but also to her greater Unangax community. She is a respected Elder and mentor on a variety of traditional practices, including traditional Unangax food harvesting, preparation, and preservation. She is also a fluent speaker in the traditional Atkan dialect of the Unangam Tunuu language and has been a leader in revitalizing the language. Sally has been a tremendous resource and an essential team member in many projects at APIA, including most recently being involved in the Qaqamiigux: Traditional Foods Film Series. Sally is a central figure in many of the films, including the topics of: chocolate lily, reindeer, eider duck, and bidarki. Her involvement in the project has been key to the success of the films in light of her skills as an educator, traditional knowledge bearer, and fluent Unangam Tunuu speaker.
The Wrigley’s, Alaska Flour Company
Settling in Delta Junction, Alaska back in 1983, the Wrigley’s imagined building a farm that would increase Alaska’s food security, create markets for fellow farmers, provide healthy, locally grown food options, and offer their children the opportunity to continue the operation into the future. They knew Alaska’s unique conditions – a short growing season and long, dark winters – would require innovative farming techniques and never-say-quit determination. They use sustainable farming practices on their 1,700-acre farm, on which they raised five children. In 2011, their hard work, perseverance, and passion for nutritious, locally grown products paid off when they founded the Alaska Flour Company, the only commercial flour mill in Alaska. (The next nearest mill is more than 1,500 miles away.)
2020 Food Heroes
Native Village of Savoonga Reindeer Crew
Richmond Toolie ∙ Freeman Kingeekuk ∙ Michael Kralik ∙ Nick Toolie ∙ Sidney Kulowiyi ∙ Scott Toolie ∙ Kacy Pungowiyi ∙ Christopher Miklahook ∙ Ronald Kingeekuk ∙ Derek Toolie ∙ Derek Akeya ∙ Justina Noongwook ∙ Orville Toolie
Richmond Toolie and his crew work with the Native Village of Savoonga to ensure that fresh reindeer meat is locally produced and available to the community members. This contribution to food security on St. Lawrence Island and western Alaska is a critical adaptation to the challenges brought on by a changing climate that can result, some years, in a poor subsistence harvest of the local traditional diet of marine mammals.
Marsh Skeele
Marsh Skeele is a second-generation fisherman, entrepreneur, food systems change maker, and co-founder and vice president of the unique, values-based seafood company, Sitka Salmon Shares. Marsh grew up fishing the summers in the small rural Southeast Alaska community of Port Alexander with his family. As a young troller, Marsh connected with Nic Mink, the other co-founder of Sitka Salmon Shares. Together, they co-founded a company that is transforming small-scale, community-based fisheries in Alaska. During a time when global and domestic markets have collapsed due to trade wars and COVID-19, Sitka Salmon Shares is delivering more than 20% over the dock price to fishermen owners — which translated in 2020 to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income in the pockets of local Sitka fishermen.
Amy Foote
Chef Amy Foote and her team provide nearly 3,000 meals per day to patients, elders, and visitors to the ANMC campus. Chef Amy increased traditional food offerings at ANMC from 30 percent to over 60 percent on the patient menu. In addition to this, she has networked and collaborated with folks around the state of Alaska enhancing ANMC’s traditional foods donation program. Today, ANMC serves seal and is the only facility in Alaska doing so. In addition to that, Chef Amy has worked with the Alaska Professional Hunting Association, which has helped ANMC receive generous donations of moose meat. From 2014 to 2020, ANMC received over 10 tons of traditional foods donations, thanks to Chef Amy.
2019 Food Heroes
Lisa & Tim Meyers, Meyers Farm
Tim and Lisa Meyers have proven rural farming can be successful. Meyers Farm was established in 2002 and is located in Bethel, Alaska. They are dedicated to growing and distributing fresh, locally grown, chemical-free produce to the Bethel region and beyond.
Called the “permafrost farmer”, Tim is an avid promoter of farming in the YK Delta. Meyers Farm serves as an example of the wide range of food that can be produced and sold year round – thanks to his underground root cellar. Tim firmly believes, with a few more farmers, Bethel could feed the state of Alaska. The Meyers are working on that goal by growing the food and the farmers – sharing their expertise and passion with students, interns and other farmers. Tim is also known as an innovator, developing new attachments for his tractor, building high tunnels and underground root cellars on the tundra. The Meyers had the first agricultural export from the region, shipping produce to Anchorage. Currently, they are working with RurAL CAP to ship boxes of fresh produce to village Head Start programs. Tim and Lisa also help educate people how to prepare, cook and store the local produce.
Lia Heifetz, Barnacle Foods
Lia Heifetz was born and raised in Southeast Alaska and wants to see our communities and people prosper. Lia’s passion for local foods has touched communities all across the region. She works through-out the region with her consulting company, Grow Southeast, to increase local food production, processing, distribution and consumption to build resilient local food systems and to empower Southeast Alaskans.
Previously, as the Food Security Coordinator for Southeast Conference and Director of the Local Foods Program at the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, and, currently, as the owner of Grow Southeast and partner in Barnacle Foods, Lia has increasingly become the face of the food security movement in the region. Her work with the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition started the Salt & Soil Marketplace, a food hub helping increase food production throughout Southeast Alaska by connecting local food producers and consumers.
Heidi Chay, Kenai Soil & Water Conservation District
Heidi Chay, District Manager of the Kenai Soil & Water Conservation District, is an amazing farm and food advocate, community organizer, and a visionary for the central Kenai Peninsula. Her work includes a variety of outreach to farmers, connecting food producers to buyers and restaurants, and education and information sharing. Her significant contributions to food projects have created an environment for local food to thrive.
Heidi regularly supplies support to the farmers of the area through equipment rentals, technical support (ex. hosting Women in Ag conference, speakers on farm finances, farm tours, techniques, financial aid, planning), marketing (“Kenai Loves Local Food” directory for farms and markets), and networking (Farm and Food Fridays). She has been hugely elemental in the expansion and success of the Alaska Food Hub in Kenai as well as the success of the Farmers Fresh Tuesday Market at the Kenai Food Bank and the annual Harvest Moon Food Festival.
2018 Food Heroes
Robbi Mixon, Homer Farmers Market
Robbi has managed the Homer Farmers Market for years, fostering amazing growth due to her knack for recognizing needs and addressing them, including the adoption of the market coin program and SNAP benefits program and other initiatives at the Market She is the director for the Alaska Food Hub and the Alaska Farmers Market Association, headquartered at Cook Inletkeeper.
2016 Food Heroes
Kyra Wagner, Sustainable Homer
If you are visiting Homer and interested in local food systems, chances are you will connect with Kyra Wagner. Wagner writes an article weekly on the Homer Farmers Market during the season, organizes high tunnel tours and gatherings of farmers, and writes a weekly Sustainable Homer newsletter that lists activities that build local resilience. “Kyra is a role model for food advocates around Alaska and has made a huge impact on the local food system in Homer,” according to Moe. “Her work perfectly exemplifies the Alaska Food Policy Council’s mission of improving our food system in a prosperous, healthy, and self-reliant way.”
Tyonek Tribal Conservation District
The TTCD’s Tyonek Grown Program operates a 1.5 acre farm using organic methods, with two high tunnels and solar-powered irrigation and ventilation systems in the Native Village of Tyonek. Youth in the Tyonek community learn about all aspects of farming and learn to enjoy healthy, locally grown foods. Much of the produce they grow is distributed to Tyonek elders. AFPC Governing Board member Danny Consenstein praises TTCD’s focus on conservation and community. “Tyonek provides a model for what other villages and conservation districts could do.”
Diane Peck, Division of Public Health – Outstanding Service Award
Peck is a Dietician with the Obesity Prevention Program at the Division of Public Health and helped found the AFPC through that program. AFPC Coordinator Samantha Ford said that “Diane’s ability to bring people together has been instrumental in growing the AFPC. We are so proud to honor her with this award.”