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Judi Varga-Toth
Judi has been involved with non-profit organizations for over twenty-five years. She is currently the Co-Chair of the Deep Roots Food Hub.
Judi owned and operated her own café, cooking school, and catering company called Credible Edibles, which served ‘nutritious, delicious, and environmentally conscious’ food. Her goal for the Deep Roots Food Hub is to make it the place to go in West Carleton for everything and anything to do with good food like buying, learning about, knowing about, cooking, preparing, and growing good food. Essentially, her goal is to turn it into the hub for good food in West Carleton. |
Katie Ward Katie Ward is a 9th generation family farmer from South March. She and her partner Matt grow vegetables, and raise sheep, chickens, and pigs in Woodlawn with a focus on building soil and rotational grazing on pasture.
As the co-owner of Our Farm CSA, she strives to provide the community with healthy, sustainably grown, and delicious food. Furthermore, Katie has a passion for eating seasonally throughout the year, which has led to a love of canning, freezing and dehydrating food. |
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Connie Higginson-MurrayConnie Higginson-Murray is a journalist and communications specialist. She has worked for the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, the Canadian Conservation Institute, a Canadian Member of Parliament, and two social service organizations serving low-income Ottawa residents and newcomers to Canada. She was a freelance journalist for Canwest/Postmedia News for 14 years, a resource manager and marketing consultant for a variety of non-profit organizations and has edited two history books. She has a B.A.Hon in Canadian Literature.
Connie is a founding member of the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum, was the first director of programs and exhibitions for the museum and assisted in creating exhibitions and recreations. She is also a founder and former board member for the North American Carnival Museum and Archives and was a member of the City of Ottawa Arts, Heritage and Culture Advisory Committee for six years. She has written and presented academic papers on heritage programming and conservation and is currently writing a history of Project EASE (the Diefenbunker). Connie grew up in Van Kleek Hill, Ontario. Her parents were small scale market gardeners (raspberries, vegetables and bedding plants). Connie was an equestrian and showed her Tennessee Walker and Standardbred at fairs in eastern Ontario and western Quebec. |
Rob Tovell
Rob is a 12 year resident of West Carleton, working within the high tech sector in Ottawa/Kanata.
Prior to moving to Ottawa for school, he was raised in a small farming community in Southern Ontario. Growing up, Rob spent a lot of time on his grandparents' farm and working on his uncles' farms. He also spent every summer helping his parents plant, maintain, and harvest their garden. Rob feels that it is important to continue growing in his own garden for his family, learning new techniques, and sharing some of what they harvest so that others can learn the importance of growing food. |
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Rheal Gervais
Rhéal Gervais is an experienced executive with over 30 years of experience in operations, engineering, research and development, business development, solutions architecture and consulting. He most recently held the position of Vice President of Engineering and Operations at Sidense Corp. His previously held positions include Director of Engineering at Intevis Corporation, Director of Solutions Architects at Cadence Design Systems, as well as management and project leadership positions at ATI Technologies and Mitel Semiconductor.
Rhéal started making the connection between the security of his family and the food security of the area where he lived. Since up to 80% of the food in Ontario comes from California, and California is in the midst of a 7-year drought with no end in sight, he became pretty concerned. So, Rhéal became actively involved in the Deep Roots Food Hub to try to increase the resilience of the Ottawa area to future potential food shortages. |
Dr. Barry BruceDr. Bruce received his MD from UWO, and established a family practice (and a family) with Dr. Carol Bruce in Carp Ontario in 1973. He was Chief of Staff ,Queensway-Carleton Hospital, Lead Physician West Carleton FHT, (awarded Family Practice of the Year, 2010), received the Ontario “Physicians Care Award”, carried the Olympic Torch for the CMA, received “Family Physician of the Year” for the Champlain Region and the Order of Ottawa, both in 2013.
Professionally, he does primary care clinical work, planning, and research, leads a local Primary Care Network, works on various LHIN and MOHLTC committees and was a clinical running instructor. He leads the “Physical Activity and Therapeutic Exercise” team for the West Carleton Family Health Team, and is the clinical lead for a Community paramedic program embedded in the WCFHT. As co-chair of the "Rural Healthy Living Coalition" (RHLC), nutrition, food equity and food insecurity were important agenda topics. This lead to the development of a working group of local food experts and advocates, and eventually spawned the development of the Deep Roots Food Hub. |
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Jennifer FryJen is a wife and a mother of two young children. She is underway on her transition from careers in nuclear medicine and environmental compliance to becoming a holistic nutritionist and a homeopath. When conventional methods weren’t helping, she taught herself about nutrition and used it as the main modality in healing her son who was chronically ill as a baby. Since then, she has been passionate about learning and educating people about the power of food. She recently moved to West Carleton after six years of living in Europe. She is excited to work within her community to keep her neighbours informed and nourished, to help her local farmers’ businesses thrive, and to move the general conversation around food back to its roots.
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