Funding for employment essential for us to operate. A donation to Sole Food directly supports our mission to provide meaningful, dignified employment.

Localized food systems are an essential element of increased food security, a national issue.

Your donation helps create real, measurable change in the lives of those we serve. A donation to Sole Foods increases wraparound supports for farmers and improvements in farm infrastructure

Our donors are essential to our operations. As a contributor to our organization, we invite you to tour the farm, meet the farmers and keep up to date with our community events

Sole Foods mission is to transform vacant urban land into thriving green spaces where food production flourishes. We need your support to fulfill this mission and make Vancouver a greener city

BOARD CHAIR

Tiago is an urban planner and sommelier. Having grown up in Vancouver, he completed his BA at UBC focusing on urban studies and critical theory. Concurrently, he completed the WSET Diploma and French Wine Scholar certifications. Tiago has a background working in and writing wine lists for several restaurants in Vancouver. As for many post-covid, he made a pivot, and moved to Edmonton to pursue an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning. He now works at the City of Fort Saskatchewan as a Planner I and teaches wine classes. He is honoured to advance the mission of Sole Food Street Farms through the work at Cultivate Canada.

BOARD MEMBER

With nearly 20 years of experience in the Downtown Eastside, Johanna is deeply committed to supporting community economic development initiatives. She is passionate about creating meaningful employment opportunities, recognizing the profound value of work that extends far beyond income. Johanna began her career in the DTES at the Potluck Café Society and further contributed to social enterprise development at the Vancity Community Foundation. Most recently, she served as the Director of EMBERS Eastside Works, a program she founded to champion equitable and inclusive employment services for individuals facing barriers to employment.  She currently continues her work in community economic development as the Director of Exchange Inner City at Community Impact Real Estate Society and as the Program Director at the Central City Foundation.

BOARD MEMBER

Peter Ladner is a retired author, columnist, politician and business owner. He is the author of The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities and a former Fellow at the SFU Centre for Dialogue. He is chair of the BC Cycling Coalition, and a former chair of David Suzuki Foundation and Natural Step Canada. He was first elected to Vancouver City Council in 2002 and re-elected in 2005. He ran for mayor in 2008. He is a former vice chair of the Metro Vancouver board. Peter was publisher, president and part owner of the Business in Vancouver Media Group, which he co-founded in 1989. He has more than 35 years of journalistic experience in print, radio and television and has been a frequent speaker on community, transportation and food issues. Peter lives in Kitsilano with his wife Erica, where he grows a wide variety of fruits, berries and vegetables on his city lot.

BOARD MEMBER

Janine de la Salle has over 17 years of experience in building healthy communities and resilient food systems with government, university, private and non-profit sectors, and is one of Canada’s leading and award-winning professionals in the field of food and agriculture system planning. As Principal of Urban Food Strategies, Janine leads and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to develop plans, strategies, policies, and designs to improve the resilience of social, economic, and environmental elements of food and agriculture systems. Janine frequently teaches and shares frameworks, ideas, and inspirations drawn from leading over 70 projects in Western and Territorial Canada.

BOARD MEMBER

Mitchell is born and raised in Vancouver and after graduating from the University of Toronto, returned to live and work in the city. He currently works in commercial real estate and sees the ebb and flow of Vancouver’s land use, growth, and development. Mitchell is passionate about supporting the community that he lives and works in through a variety of avenues, having lent his time and efforts to several initiatives and coaching youth hockey. Sole Food Street Farms is a cause that is making a significant difference in the community, which Mitchell is honoured to help further.

Andrea Carlson is a Michelin Star chef and owner of Burdock & Co., Bar Gobo, and Harvest Community Foods. Burdock & Co. is the first restaurant owned and operated by a female chef to receive a Michelin Star in Canada. Born and trained in British Columbia, Andrea studied organic farming and landscape design before making her mark on some of the best restaurants in Vancouver. Interconnection between food and nature is a foundation of Andera’s culinary philosophy, and she has become a driving force behind the city’s food security movement.