Food Coalition Coordinator
Rachael Cougler-DeVriendt (coordinator@northwestmifoodcoalition.org)

M.B.A., Clarkson University
B.A., Entrepreneurship and Marketing, SUNY Morrisville
Advanced Certification in Innovation and New Venture Management

Rachael joined the Coalition as the Coordinator in Fall 2023, where she is dedicated to fostering connections amongst Coalition members and the communities they serve. In addition to her role at the Coalition, she contributes her expertise to the emergency food programs at the Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency.

With extensive experience supporting small and startup businesses and an upbringing in an agricultural community, this ignited her passion for community development and local agriculture. She sees her role at the Coalition as a perfect alignment of her values and aspirations to strengthen community resources and uplift local farmers.

Chairperson of Operating Committee
Mary Clulo (mclulo@mhc.net)
M.A. Public Policy, Maternal and Child Health
Certificate in Health Administration, University of Chicago
B.A. Business Administration, University of Notre Dame

Mary works for Munson Healthcare leading the Treasury department. She ran the food pantry for St. Patrick Catholic Church for 18 years as a volunteer leader. In 2016-2018 she served on the Steering Committee of the Food Coalition, which became the Operating Committee in 2018. She has served as the chair of the Operating Committee since March of 2018. Mary also participated with the systems team that created the Coalition’s Food Security System Map and continues to work with the Rotary Charities of Traverse City Systems Change Community of Practice.

She lives in Traverse City with her husband and has two adult children.

Treasurer
Chair, Empty Bowls fundraising event
Co-Chair, Fundraising Committee
Member, Purchasing Committee

Kathy Maly (malyk805@gamil.com)
B.S. Accounting, Western Michigan University
M.B.A., Western Michigan University

Kathy worked in Accounting for hospitals/health systems for her entire career predominantly in the Southeast Michigan area. Looking to enjoy their vacation home year-round, Kathy and her husband Frank moved to Traverse City where Kathy joined Munson Healthcare in 2018 and retired in 2023 after serving as Munson’s Chief Financial Officer. While living downstate, Kathy and Frank volunteered in various capacities relating to food insecurity such as leading their church’s annual dinner for 10 years at the St. Patrick Senior Center in Detroit, also leading a Christmas food and gift drive for patients at the health system for 13 years. Kathy and Frank currently live on Lake Leelanau and enjoy boating. In her spare time, Kathy is learning to watercolor paint so she can do paintings of our beautiful “Up North”!

Member

Michele Worden
M.B.A. 1999 Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
B.S.Chem/B.S. Ch.E. 1988 College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Certificate of Fundraising Management, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University
Advanced Master Gardener Volunteer MSUE, Gold Badge

Michele was introduced to the Coalition in 2016 by Kris Thomas, who invited her to a meeting. Michele volunteered with the Coalition soon afterwards, as the convenor and facilitator of the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee was formed to address issues identified in the 2014 Benzie Rotary Food Security Report, and is currently called the Operating Committee. She was the team leader for the creation of the System Map for the food coalition in 2017. She worked with Kris Thomas to start the Farm2Neighbor Fund in 2018 to being fresh product into the Food Pantries. She was chair of the Committee that organized the 2020 Food Security Summit. She was the project leader on the creation of the Northwest Food Coalition website and marketing materials. She has served as a liaison with the Orten Foundation board, which is one of the longest and largest donors of the Coalition. She has served on the Governance Committee, the Fundraising Committee and several short term project committees.

Prior to 2016, Michele spent six years working in various elementary schools as an instructor in school gardens, ‘Food of the Month” nutrition programs, and as a Farm to School instructor for The Michigan Land Use Institute (now the Groundwork Center). She is a founding board member of The Greenspire School, Traverse City and a past president of the Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan.

Prior to moving to Northern Michigan, Michele worked as a product development consultant for technology-based companies. Prior to her MBA, she worked as an engineer and project manager capital projects in the Petroleum and Chemical industries, overseas and domestically.

She lives in the woods in Traverse City with her husband and her dog. She enjoys hiking the trails and working in her garden and traveling with her college age children.

Member

Pastor Dave Kroon (dave@thegoodsam.org)
Pantry Coordinator
Good Samaritan Food Pantry

Dave is the pantry coordinator and chaplain for Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Antrim county. Dave has served on the Operating Committee since 2019.

Member

Cathy Somes (kairkalkaska@gmail.com)
Executive Director
Kalkaska Area Interfaith Resources

Cathy is the Executive Director of Kalkaska Interfaith Resource (KAIR) in Kalkaska county, which operates a food pantry, client assistance programs, thrift store, and is a source of referrals to other agencies as needed. KAIR was awarded a grant allowing KAIR to open a community meal site in Kalkaska in 2020. She has volunteered on the Steering Committee, then Operating Committee since 2016.

Member

Taylor Moore (taylorm@goodwillnmi.org)

Director, Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan

B.A. Sociology & Political Science – Colorado College
Diplome de Cuisine, Le Cordon Bleu

Taylor Moore is the Director of Food Rescue, a program of Goodwill Northern Michigan. Since 2015, Taylor has worked at Food Rescue, providing 2.6M pounds of food to the 70+ pantries and meal programs of the Northwest Food Coalition. Taylor is a participant in local, statewide, and federal coalitions, research programs, and advisory boards addressing food insecurity and food waste. He has been a member of the Steering Committee, then Operating Committee since 2016.

Member
Purchasing Committee Facilitator

Christina Barkel (christina@groundworkcenter.org)
Purchasing Coordinator for Northwest Food Coalition
Food Equity Specialist
Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities

B.A. in Environmental Science, with focus on Environmental Justice from the Literature, Science and Arts school
School of Natural Resources, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Christina works as a Food Equity Specialist with Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities. She supports several key parts of the Food & Farming program. Most of her time is spent working with farmers and food pantries to create systems that increase the amount of healthy, locally grown food available to people who use food pantries. Christina began her work with the food coalition as the Purchasing Coordinator of the Farm2Neighbor program through the Helping You Heal grant. Her role has been expanded the encompass expanded purchasing for the Northwest Food Coalition through funding from the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation . Previous experience includes working with community gardening, urban food access work and farm to school Initiatives in both Ypsilanti and Detroit, as well as five years managing a diverse vegetable CSA farm in Leelanau County.

Christina loves to be outside as much as possible, and can be found in the garden, at the beach or on the trails in the summer and on skis or skates in the winter.

Member

Diane Mahoney 

Executive Director
Benzie Area Christian Neighbors 

Diane has served as the executive director of Benzie Area Christian Neighbors since October 2024, when she moved to northwest Michigan to be with her husband. Prior to that, she was the president and CEO of the Bay Area Community Foundation. She holds a Master’s of Public Administration from Wayne State University.

Member

Advisor

Jennifer Berkey (berkeyj@msu.edu)
District 3 Director
Michigan State University Extension

B. S. Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Arizona, 1997
M. S. Administration, Central Michigan University, 2008

Jennifer serves as the District Three Director and provides administrative oversight for the six county MSU Extension offices in Northwest Lower Michigan including; Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Kalkaska and Manistee Counties. She has worked for MSU Extension for 28 years and prior to this assignment she worked as an extension educator providing supervision for SNAP-Ed nutrition instructors as well as taught food safety education for the community. She has been active in multiple leadership positions within her community; PTO president at two schools as well as served as President of MEAFCS (Michigan Extension Association of Family and Consumer Science Educators). Jennifer has been an active member of the Northwest Food Coalition by linking the nutrition and food safety resources to the pantry members.

She lives in Traverse City with her two daughters and her golden doodle. Jennifer enjoys participating in her daughter’s school and sporting events as well as hiking on our beautiful northern Michigan trails or boating on the bay.