Born and raised in the civil rights hub of Atlanta, GA, Christine has from a young age stood at the intersection of advocating for her fellow neighbor, building entrepreneurial ventures, and developing her interest in local food production. Growing up with grandparents who worked their family farms in the rural South, Christine remembers biting into one grandmother’s sun-ripened tomatoes, juices running down her chin with her toy microscope in hand, as she learned about the importance of healthy soils. Her other grandmother, born into a Cherokee Indian family, relentlessly invested in the well-being of immigrant children from Southeast Asia. These lessons stuck with her.

 

As a first generation-college student and HOPE scholarship recipient, Christine graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Public Policy and a concentration in Economic Development and Urban Planning from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. She received the Andrew Young Undergraduate Student of the Year award. Christine completed her certification in Nonprofit Organizational Management from the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, a one-year program addressing board development, fundraising, budgeting, nonprofit law, and community engagement in program design and implementation. In 2022, Christine received her Public Leadership Credential from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, covering topics ranging from Policy Design and Delivery, Leadership and Ethics, and Evidence for Decisions.

 

Upon moving to Boston in 2021-2022, she served as the Co-Chair for the Mayor’s Food Access Agenda Working Group with the Boston Food Access Council. She also completed the Cooking Techniques Series I & II at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. She is a current contributor for Edible Southeastern Massachusetts, a food magazine focused on local and sustainable agriculture. In 2022, she was appointed to the Scituate Cultural Council.

 

In 2005, appointed by the President of Georgia Banking at Royal Bank of Canada as the first Director of Workplace Banking, Christine built a retail division comprised of the state’s 56 branches and managed a $50M portfolio in partnership with the Commercial and Business Banking teams. This included mid-scale agricultural and restaurant franchise credit and deposit products. She was awarded the state’s Most Valuable Player award on three consecutive occasions.

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However, after eight years in corporate and retail banking, Christine stumbled across a special report investigating the human trafficking of Cambodian children purchased for sex by adult Australian men — she had reached a crossroads. As she watched the face of the child, the righteous indignation was too much to bear — she had to do something. Three months later, Christine enrolled with YWAM, an international organization, to learn about this issue first-hand. After placing her home on the market and resigning from the bank, Christine moved to the red-light district of Perth, Western Australia. Living next door to a brothel, she plunged into understanding the complexities of this human rights problem. She later relocated to the human trafficking hub of Mexico City, Mexico, to facilitate local stakeholder input and collaboration efforts for trafficked minors, including legislative action with local officials.

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After returning to Atlanta, Christine served in numerous capacities with both grassroots and established nonprofits, which included serving as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for Love Made Claim, Inc.; The Director of Development and Outreach for Wellspring Living, the largest non-profit restoring minor victims of domestic human trafficking; and the Co-Founder of Becker Innovation Group, LLC, a consultancy focused on scaling human rights-focused nonprofits. All the while, her interest in food continued to permeate her mind.

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She reached another crossroads and pivoted to focus on food access. In 2019, while serving as the Director of Development for Wholesome Wave Georgia, a food access nonprofit specializing in SNAP Education and Food is Medicine, she partnered with the City of Atlanta’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability to launch a pilot program known as Access AgLanta. The program addressed removing transportation barriers to healthy, local food for residents in food swamps. As a volunteer harvester for Aluma Farms, beekeeper in training at Freewheel Farms, and a vermicomposter in her own backyard, Christine had returned to her roots. Since moving to Boston, Christine launched Food Scribe Consulting, LLC., which has given her the pleasure of meeting and serving many talented New England growers, purveyors, and local food enthusiasts!

 

As a burgeoning expert in cultural fluency, and exploring the role of local food in building heritage and propagating health, Christine has tasted the world in 44 countries spanning all seven continents. Christine resides with her husband and her expansive worm farm in a 1780s cottage nestled by the shore. Moving to New England, where the world’s best oysters grow against the cold, wild sea, has been one of her greatest joys in life - this is home.

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