La Cocina has been cultivated from the seed of an idea: that women, immigrants, and people of color – if given access to a kitchen and a community of support – can thrive as business owners. All of the impact and success you are about to read about is due to La Cocina’s communities:

• The nonprofits who came up with the idea for our organization.
• The women who got a kitchen built on Folsom Street.
• The entrepreneurs who entered that kitchen, and who now also enter La Cocina on Hyde Street with their hopes, dreams, and recipes.
• The staff (most of whom I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside and learning from over the past 16 years on my own journey to becoming the executive director) who have poured their heart into this work.
• The institutions and individuals who believe in our work enough to invest in it.
• The eaters who support the businesses born at La Cocina.

I could go on. The point is that I see my leadership of La Cocina as a responsibility to continue to cultivate and strengthen our community of food businesses and to ensure that our deep commitment here can inspire and teach others to approach this work in their own communities in a similar way. My vision is that we dig our roots a little deeper into the Bay Area and that we watch the tendrils of our work spread further and wider as people take notice of what we’ve grown here.

Thank you for believing in La Cocina and for knowing how essential the work of building businesses and feeding others really is.

In community,