In this unprecedented time of the Coronavirus pandemic, many of us want to help but aren’t sure how. Meals of Gratitude was founded to help those working on the frontlines – closest to the intensity and dangers of caring for the sick. We are just people who want to help people.

Jesse Ziff Cool

Jesse has been dedicated to sustainable agriculture and cuisine since 1976. It was not easy, as concepts like Sustainable Cuisine, Farm-to-Table, and Eat Local did not exist then. Efforts towards regenerative farming and food service continue to drive her curiosity.

Jesse founded five restaurants in the SF Bay Area. In the midst, she authored seven cookbooks and wrote for magazines and newspapers. Her history includes instructor for Stanford’s Department of Education with a Seven Ingredient, No Recipe, Real Food Curriculum, and Hospital Food Service Consultant at the forefront of the concept “Food is Medicine.”

Her company’s core concept, “The Customer Comes Last,” translates to: Take care of the environment and people from the beginning to end in our food system and the guest will, in the end, get genuine care from people who are respected for their hard, honest work. With two restaurants still in operation, she remains the founding Chef/Owner of Flea Street (1980) and Stanford Cantor Cool Cafe (2000).

Jess is excited about mentoring young business men and women entering the profession and sharing successes and challenges. She continues to eat and drink to abandon and keeping active to basically allow her to devour more of all that she loves in life!

Holly K. Tabor

Holly Tabor is a faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine. She earned her PhD in epidemiology from Stanford University and her AB from Harvard University.

James Cham

James is a venture capitalist at Bloomberg Beta investing in the future of work. He lives in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @jamescham.

Mohan S. Iyer

Mohan is currently COO at a biotech start-up. In a career spanning 30+ years in biotech, he has held various executive and advisory positions in both business and technical functions at several companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering (Tennessee), an MS in Biomedical Engineering (Duke), and an MBA (Yale).

Karen Peterson-Iyer

Karen is an Assistant Professor in Santa Clara University’s Department of Religious Studies. She earned her PhD in theological/philosophical ethics from Yale University and her BA in political science from Stanford University.

Eric Wilfrid

Eric led product teams and businesses at Microsoft for 24 years. He now serves as Board Vice Chair for Special Olympics Northern California. He is an activist and advocate for inclusion of people with disabilities in society.

Danielle Liebl

Danielle is an associate attorney at Reed Smith LLP where she practices commercial real estate law. Danielle also has experience with nonprofit formation and has assisted many nonprofit gain their 501(c)3 status.

Jeanne Dechiario

Jeanne has a background in public health (MPH, Columbia University) and infectious disease epidemiology (PhD, Stanford University). Now a stay-at-home mom, she volunteers her time to causes that are important to her and her family.

Jennifer Beaumont Wilfrid

Jennifer is a graphic designer and creative marketing director who works outside of Boston. She enjoys creating logos and working with small businesses. She can be contacted at jennifer@beaumont-design.com.

Pía Mancini

Pía is co-founder and CEO of Open Collective. Open Collective is a platform that helps you make your community sustainable. Community is about trust and sharing. Open Collective lets you manage your finances transparently. Accept donations and sponsorships, celebrate your supporters, pay expenses, and keep everyone up to date—all in one place. Note: Open Collective is waiving their fees to support all COVID-19 support groups. They are not sustainable themselves, so this is not trivial for them. You can choose to support them here: opencollective.com/opencollective/donate – everything helps!