Moe Garahan
Moe Garahan
Executive Director
Just Food
Ottawa Profile
Since 2004, Moe Garahan has been the Executive Director of Just Food, a grassroots, non-profit organization that champions and supports sustainable food systems in the National Capital Region. Just Food works with teams to integrate food access and food localism within the mixed urban and rural settings of the Ottawa region: it began with a $20,000 grant and has now just celebrated 15 years! Moe has been working on food and farming issues in Ottawa since 1995. Focused on community development and community economic development approaches, she has facilitated the establishment of many ongoing community and regional food initiatives in Ottawa, (including Just Food) while supporting provincial and national food initiatives. Moe made the Catherine Clark—#150GreatPeople listing in December 2017.
- How long have you been in Ottawa?
- Originally from Northern Ontario, I moved to Ottawa in 1995 after post-secondary education.
- What do you hope to achieve in your current role?
- In my current role at Just Food, I hope to continue to support diverse sectors and people coming together to strengthen our regional food economy, while simultaneously working to ensure there is Good Food, meaning fresh, accessible, affordable, culturally relevant, minimally processed, as local as possible, and ecologically-grown.
- What first interested you in working in infrastructure/development?
- Our built environment plays a major role in our food choices, for better and for worse. It is important that we develop a shared built environment using a food systems lens, with long-term, sustainable, community-based innovations at the core.