Organization: 360 Eats
Title: Executive Chef
Nominated by: Shay Flake, Executive Assistant
Chef Ellen has been the co-founder and Executive Chef of 360 Eats since its inception in 2020, overseeing all aspects of the organization’s programs, including food rescue, meal preparation, and training chef interns. Chef Ellen voluntarily left a very prestigious culinary career at The Fenway to focus all of her energy and talents on feeding the community for free. Despite the financial strain, she worked for a year without pay during the organizations early years, just to ensure everyone could have a nutritious meal. Her sacrifice was driven purely by her passion for helping others, rather than financial gain. Her dedication extends to mentoring and training as well. In addition to the task of feeding whole communities with the help of one kitchen assistant, she also generously shares her culinary knowledge with aspiring chefs through our internship program. On top of all of that, she is developing a catering service to generate more revenue for our 360 Eats programs. The amount of skill, resilience, patience, determination, creativity, and compassion required to do what Chef Ellen does every single day is what sets her apart.
Chef Ellen’s day starts early in the morning, arriving at the church kitchen to start the cooking process, creating over 400 meals for our free meal services. She oversees and manages the food rescue process, the sorting and prepping of food, the kitchen assistant, intern, and delegates tasks to volunteers simultaneously. Once the food is prepared, she drives the meals out to the community in our food truck, serving at 4-5 locations each week. After the community has been fed, she drives back to the kitchen to clean up, ensuring any food scraps are taken to the our composting partners (which she also does herself).
Chef Ellen has made a profound impact through her work with 360 Eats, addressing both food waste and food insecurity in Tampa Bay. Her efforts have led to the rescue of over 250,000 pounds of fresh food that would have been thrown away. With these raw ingredients, she created over 50,000 free gourmet meals that were distributed to individuals and families in need. Catalyst Kitchens connected Chef Ellen with vital resources and one-on-one meetings with members to help her refine and develop a solid curriculum for our culinary catalyst program.
SPECIAL ALERT!
Thanks to a generous donation from a founding Catalyst Kitchens board member and friend of David Carleton, the Catalyst Kitchen’s Founder’s Fund has an opportunity to raise matching funds up to $5,000 during this year’s Catalyst for Change Award Season!
This is a time-limited opportunity to get your gift matched! Donate now by clicking the button below, before the window closes to double your generosity and impact!
Here are the 2024 Catalyst for Change. As you read their stories, consider supporting the work of Catalyst Kitchens and our members, enabling the amazing impact of frontline staff like our nominees.
