Director, Roanoke Foodshed Network
Maureen (Mo) McGonagle has spent the past 19 years living in Southwest Virginia, working across many dimensions of the regional food system. From working on a small-scale vegetable farm, to supporting nutrition incentive programs at the Blacksburg Farmers Market, running community gardens with the New River Health District, and researching community food systems through a Master’s program in Agriculture, Leadership, and Community Education at Virginia Tech, Mo loves building relationships that strengthen local and regional food systems, improve access to healthy food, and center community voices. She is driven by the belief that resilient food systems grow from collaboration, storytelling, and a deep connection to place. In her free time you may find her working in her front yard garden, cooking up a delicious meal with friends, hiking the woods with her dog, or improv singing in the community.
Communications Coordinator, Roanoke Foodshed Network
In addition to her work with the Roanoke Foodshed Network (RFN), Lisa is also the editor and publisher of Edible Blue Ridge Magazine. Lisa believes in the power of telling stories to foster community. You can usually find her at a farmers market learning from a local grower or maker. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing from Hollins University and a bachelor’s in Natural Resources & Ecology from Cornell University. Before moving to Virginia, Lisa spent over a decade in the food and beverage industry in New York. When not at work, you can find her supporting her partner’s business, Fermented Fire Hot Sauce Co., converting her yard into a garden, or wrangling her chickens and dogs.
Executive Director, Local Environmental Agriculture Project (LEAP)
Maureen loves food — thinking about food, growing food, eating food, cooking food, and, of course, buying local food at LEAP’s farmers markets. Maureen has been working with food, agriculture, and community since the early 2000s. Her work and professional experience is wide-ranging and includes teaching high school agriculture in Raleigh, NC, working with migrant farmworkers in eastern North Carolina and in the Colorado plains, doing food safety inspections in Boulder, CO, and studying the economic viability of the local food system in Northern Colorado. Maureen has an MA in Anthropology from Colorado State University and undergraduate degrees in Agriculture Education, Spanish, and Anthropology from North Carolina State University. Maureen is a Bloomberg Fellow at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where she studied the intersection of food systems, community, and health. Maureen, her spouse, two young kids, and pup all love Roanoke and are happy to call Southwestern Virginia home.
Food Systems Network and Outreach Specialist, Virginia Tech
Dr. Katie Trozzo is a Food Systems Network and Outreach Specialist in the Virginia Tech Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education and serves as Assistant Director of Outreach and Engagement with the Virginia Tech Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation. She also acts as the Virginia Tech-based State Coordinator for the Virginia SARE (Southern Agriculture and Research Education) Program. In these roles, she leads and/or supports several partnership projects that contribute to farm viability, land and water stewardship, and resilient food systems. She draws upon her skillsets in cultural and participatory development, facilitation, network weaving, evaluation, event coordination, and curriculum and training development to help drive these changes. At the Center, Katie facilitates and supports in-person and virtual programming and serves as the coordinator of the Virginia Beginning Farmer and Rancher Coalition, one of the Center’s signature programs. She also serves as co-lead of the Farming and Food Production Working Group of the Roanoke Foodshed Network. Over the last 14 years, Katie’s research, extension, and teaching has also made contributions to advancing agroforestry, a suite of land management practices that merge conservation and production.
Operations Manager for Virginia Association of Biological Farming (VABF)
Becki has enjoyed roles in nonprofit leadership for over 20 years. Much of that time was spent as the Finance & Operations Director of a mid-size Kansas City organization focused on community and environment. In her work and studies, she was most interested in the intersection of food, justice, community, and environment. She nurtured her passion for regenerative growing, ecology, and local food by volunteering at Cultivate KC, completing the Growing Growers beginning farmer training and internship program, becoming certified in Permaculture, serving on the inaugural Kansas City Food Policy Steering Committee, and as Treasurer of Lawrence Community Food Alliance (Sunrise Project) for eight years. As part of the VABF team, she loves learning, connecting, and collaborating with farmers and others to build community and resiliency. Becki was tending a small farm in Kansas in 2021, when she uprooted herself, a cat, and two donkeys to move to Virginia to welcome her first grandchild in Roanoke. She is building a small off-grid Hempcrete house in Franklin County with the help of many friends which she hopes to complete this summer. She is still awed every time she sees the sunrise over the mountains.
Professor and Director of the VT Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, Virginia Tech
Kim Niewolny is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education and the founding director of the Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation at Virginia Tech. Since joining the university in 2009, her research, teaching, and extension programming have centered on the role of power in food‑systems–based community development from an interdisciplinary perspective. As a scholar‑practitioner, Kim’s work specifically explores the intersections of sustainable food systems and the praxis of community food efforts, spanning classroom to community spaces at local, regional, and global scales. She specializes in participatory and cultural approaches that illuminate how people and communities make meaning, take action, and build more abundant and healthy food futures. Her current initiatives include projects focused on urban agriculture, regional food systems; farmworker food, health, and wellness; new farmer sustainability; and the Stories of Community Food Work initiative, among others. Kim teaches graduate and undergraduate courses using experiential and community-based approaches and has served as President of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society, among other leadership roles. Through her leadership at the Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, Kim is committed to advancing research, outreach, and education that cultivate creative, community-driven possibilities for food systems that are abundant, fair, and resilient. Personally, Kim finds joy in growing, cooking, eating, and sharing food—and in raising chickens with her family.
Economic Development Specialist | City of Roanoke
Mandy Cribb is an Economic Development Specialist for the City of Roanoke, where she focuses on advancing community development and connecting underserved populations with meaningful economic opportunities. In her current role, Mandy oversees and implements comprehensive community development initiatives aligned with the City’s strategic plan. As a dedicated liaison and collaborator, she works closely with key external stakeholders—including Main Street America, GO Virginia, the Roanoke Foodshed Network, and the National League of Cities—to drive regional progress through cross-sector partnerships. As a practitioner committed to inclusive growth, Mandy provides support to startup and emerging small and minority-owned businesses, fostering a robust and equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem within the City. Her work extends to the physical and economic revitalization of Roanoke’s neighborhood centers, where she manages the City’s Main Street program and oversees the Brownfields program to transform underutilized spaces into community assets. To sustain and expand these initiatives, Mandy strategically identifies, secures, and manages grant funding, ensuring the City’s development goals are backed by diverse financial resources.
Mandy’s approach is informed by a background in nonprofit program management, with specialized experience in disaster services, housing, and transportation. Prior to her current role, she served as Mobility Manager for Planning District 12, where she worked across sectors to analyze regional transportation needs and design innovative, multimodal services that increased accessibility for all residents. Mandy holds a BS in Human Services and an MPA from Old Dominion University. Through her leadership in the City of Roanoke, Mandy remains dedicated to cultivating resilient, community-driven economic systems to prioritize equity, revitalization, and sustainable growth.
Community Impact Consultant | Carilion Clinic
Since joining Carilion Clinic in 2017, Ashley Hash has worked alongside community partners to improve health and well-being across Southwest Virginia. Her work focuses on engaging stakeholders, using data to better understand local needs, and supporting strategies that prioritize populations facing the greatest barriers to health. She is particularly passionate about advancing health equity and strengthening collaborations that lead to meaningful, community-driven impact.
Ashley holds a Master of Public Health from Virginia Tech and is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES). She lives in Virginia’s New River Valley and values staying closely connected to the communities she serves.
Agency Relations Coordinator for Health Partnerships, Feeding Southwest Virginia
Sabrina Simons has served as the Agency Relations Coordinator at Feeding Southwest Virginia since 2024. She focuses specifically on Healthcare Partnerships to advance the organization’s Food is Medicine initiatives. Additionally, Sabrina serves on the Southwest Virginia Produce Rx Program (SWPRx) leadership team, Healthy Food Access (HCAT) leadership team, Healthy Pantry Initiative (HPI) Steering Committee, and the Boundless Collaboration/Health Equity Working Group (HEWG). She is deeply passionate about advancing equitable food access and finds daily inspiration in her colleagues, agency partners, and community members who share this mission-driven space. Upon moving to Southwest Virginia in 2024, Sabrina has quickly made roots both in her professional community and in her personal life as a new mother. Surrounded by the region’s fresh green landscapes, she’s found a sense of familiarity and grounding that reminds her of her West Virginia/PA hometowns and fuels commitment to the work she loves.
Farmer, Singing Spring Farm
Elizabeth (Eliza) Spellman is a farmer and acupuncturist in the Sinking Creek Valley of Craig County, Virginia. Her home is in a beautiful limestone valley that was stewarded by Monacan people for millennia. With her husband, Adam, and young kids, she tends Singing Spring Farm, raising food, fiber, and medicine. Eliza started farming at Waterpenny Farm in 2008 and hasn’t missed a garden season since– whether a container veggie garden in the San Joaquin Valley or working at a four season farm in Vermont. Since 2013, she has worked throughout Central and Southern Appalachia with land trusts, cooperatives development, shared land stewardship models, local food systems, and small farm advocacy. She is founding board chair of the SWVA Agrarian Commons, a nonprofit whose goal is to permanently de-commodify land and put it in community control in order to heal injustices that have separated people from land and enabled the exploitation of both.
