[ladonna redmond]
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LaDonna Redmond is president and CEO of the Institute for Community Resource Development (ICRD), Chicago, Ill. The Institute’s mission is to rebuild the local food system. ICRD projects include: building grocery stores that bring access to sustainable products to urban communities of color, organizing farmers markets, converting vacant lots to urban farm sites and distributing local grown produce to restaurants.

A community activist and mother of a child with severe food allergies, Ms. Redmond began researching the food system in order to feed her son. Through her work, she discovered that people in urban communities want, but have limited access to, healthy food. This discovery led Redmond to get Chicago Public Schools to evaluate access to junk food in schools and create a task force to examine the potential of other pilot changes, such as connecting farmers to schools. Her discoveries also have led the Mayor of Chicago to consider urban agriculture as a good use of urban space.

Ms. Redmond received the 2003 Chicago Tribune Good Food Award. She has been featured in local and national publications including The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Conscious Choice, Healthwell and Chicago Parent. Ms. Redmond also is a columnist for two Chicago-area publications, the Austin Weekly News and the Wednesday Journal.

Ms. Redmond serves on a number of boards, including the Illinois Governor’s Advisory Council on Agriculture, Healthy Schools Campaign, African American Women Evolving, National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and the task force to improve the school food environment.

Ms. Redmond also has spoken at numerous events, the most recent being the Bioneers Workshop; the Urban Affairs Conference in Washington, DC; Community/University partnership; and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society conference workshop on “Ethnicity and the Environment.”

In addition to her listed area of expertise, Ms. Redmond also speaks with authority on the issues of food allergies in children, urban food access and social justice and sustainable agriculture.

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