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Lea Howe

she/her

PLANTS Project Director

Lea joined the Chef Ann Foundation team in June 2023 and serves as the organization’s PLANTS Project Director. In this role, she leads our work to develop and implement the Healthy Meals Incentives School Food System Transformation Sub-Grants-Cooperative Agreement to build a more fair, resilient and equitable food supply chain. The project is designed to incentivize innovative partnerships between school districts, food producers, suppliers, distributors, and community partners to strengthen the availability of and access to nutritious foods in the K-12 school food marketplace.

Lea Howe

she/her

PLANTS Project Director

Lea joined the Chef Ann Foundation team in June 2023 and serves as the organization’s PLANTS Project Director. In this role, she leads our work to develop and implement the Healthy Meals Incentives School Food System Transformation Sub-Grants-Cooperative Agreement to build a more fair, resilient and equitable food supply chain. The project is designed to incentivize innovative partnerships between school districts, food producers, suppliers, distributors, and community partners to strengthen the availability of and access to nutritious foods in the K-12 school food marketplace.

Prior to joining CAF, Lea spent the past 9 years working for DC Greens, a DC-based health equity non-profit where she designed programs, led campaigns and advocated for policies that promote sustainable food systems and supported the implementation of values-aligned institutional food service models. She was the driving force behind several major initiatives to improve institutional food in the District, including the DC Good Food Purchasing Program Coalition, DCPS School Food Collaborative, the DC Farm to School Network, and the DC Jail Food Community Conversation Series. Prior to DC Greens, Lea served as a FoodCorps Service Member and Fellow in Montana for 2 years. Lea also serves on the board of Common Market Mid-Atlantic and served as the Core Partner for the National Farm to School Network for 6 years. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology at Barnard College.

During her free time, you’ll find Lea hanging with her active and outdoorsy family, including her husband and their two young kids. Lea loves running, baking bread, and spending as much time as possible getting her hands dirty on her friends’ farms!


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Who We Are

The Chef Ann Foundation is dedicated to promoting whole-ingredient, scratch-cooking in schools. Scratch-cooking enables schools to serve the healthiest, tastiest meals so that kids are well-fed and ready to learn.

Our Mission

Ensure that school food professionals have the resources, funding and support they need to provide fresh, healthy, delicious, cook from scratch meals that support the health of children and our planet.

Why School Food Matters

American kids start their life-path in K–12 schools where they learn the skills necessary to thrive & meet their potential. While the country debates the best ways to teach them math, science & English, we spend little to no time on food & nutrition.

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