Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ) is building a food-secure future through school-based, youth-led hydroponic farming, providing local, sustainably-grown produce to food desert communities, and building health, education, and opportunity equity. TFFJ trains students in Title I middle and high schools to maintain indoor hydroponic farms through hands-on farm education in STEM, health, and culinary curricular day classes, as well as food justice and nutrition-focused afterschool programming.
TFFJ’s farm-in-school model not only improves immediate food access but also equips youth from marginalized communities with tools to become leaders and advocates in shaping equitable food systems change. Student-grown produce is served daily at school lunch, distributed biweekly to campus families, and distributed to the surrounding community’s food-insecure residents, making healthy food available where it is most lacking in underresourced communities of color.
We’re transforming classrooms into hydroponic farms!
Click on any of our TFFJ school partners farm and program overviews to the right to learn more.
Additional TFFJ Farms are in the works. More details to come soon!
Meg joins Teens for Food Justice from the New York Academy of Sciences, where she served as Senior Vice President, managing a portfolio of PreK-12, higher education, and lifelong learning for students, scientists, and teachers around the world. With a focus on STEAM and Civics, she led programming in hundreds of schools and community-based organizations across New York City and global programming in over one hundred countries. At the Academy, her work focused on food justice through city-wide urban farming projects in Kigali, Rwanda, local partnerships with groups like the Billion Oyster Project, and numerous curricular and research projects with the Academy’s Nutrition Institute. She served as principal investigator and Co-Investigator on numerous National Science Foundation grants focused on scaling successful experiential learning programs to new locations.
Previously, she was at the School of the New York Times and has held positions in education, policy, and government relations at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC FIRST, and the National Governors Association. She graduated from Colorado College, where she majored in biology and theater, and earned her PhD in science education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a certified science teacher. Meg lives in Brooklyn with her family, sings with the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus, and is a volunteer at the Camp Friendship food pantry.
Katherine brought her lifelong and deep commitment to social justice and her belief in the power of young people to build a better and more equitable world to her role as Founder and CEO of Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ), and now carries that forward as CEO Emerita and as a member of the TFFJ Board. During her tenure as CEO, she empowered youth as 21st-century urban farmers growing fresh produce for their schools, and as nutrition educator-advocates leading their communities to healthier futures. Under her leadership, TFFJ’s multi-faceted approach became more than a technologically advanced solution to affordable fresh food access in neighborhoods that needed it most—it laid the foundation for a sustainable youth-led social justice movement to close huge gaps in food access, health, and opportunity between lower- and higher-income communities in NYC and beyond.
Right before her retirement, Katherine received the Joan Dye Gussow Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring her decades of leadership and impact in food justice. She also received various other awards for her work in the nonprofit sector, including her selection as a 2021 AARP Purpose Prize Honoree.
Throughout her career, Katherine held high-level management and marketing roles in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors and served on the advisory boards of several professional organizations, including the Food and Nutrition Innovation Council and the Healthy Living Coalition.
Tara Smith is the founder of Triptyk Studios, a company that develops and produces Broadway, film, tv and web-based IP. Tara made her Broadway debut at 26 as Co-Lead Producer of the hit musical satire, Xanadu, for which she was honored with the 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award and a TONY Award Nomination for Best Musical. Other Broadway hits include The Seagull starring Kristen Scott Thomas, Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America (TONY nominee), The Performers, starring Henry Winkler and Alicia Silverstone and the critically-acclaimed, new Broadway production of An American in Paris. Ms. Smith is a proud member of The Broadway League and the National Alliance of Musical Theater.
Chana Gandal Chenfeld is a graduate of Ohio State University. After graduating, she worked for two years at the UJA Federation in NYC in the New Gifts department, developing techniques for soliciting new donors. Following that, Chana spent four years working in marketing for Remco Toys. Subsequently, she worked for Columbia Pictures as the Director of International Licensing for their television and motion pictures.
While raising her three children, Chana worked to create Columbia Cares, the community service arm for the lower school at Columbia Prep, a NY based private school. Her involvement at Columbia continued as a member of both the diversity and social action committees, which brought information to and engaged the community in issues that brought a better understanding to elevating the ethics and culture of the school. She has chaired various community based committees and given countless hours towards raising funds for the various public and private schools her children have attended.
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