Meet Our Team

April McGreger is an award-winning fermenter, jam maker, writer, pastry chef, cooking teacher, and recipe developer whose work and recipes have been featured in Bon Appetit, Southern Living, The New York Times, Eating Well, Martha Stewart Living, and many other publications. Before moving to Philadelphia in 2018, she founded and operated the pickling and preserving business, Farmer’s Daughter, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for over a decade. There she turned the best of the North Carolina harvest into impeccable products that won 13 Good Food Awards. Her work preserving and promoting endangered cultural traditions and ingredients was recognized in 2014 with the Slow Food Ark of Taste Betsy Lydon Award. Her passion for social justice and food justice in particular led her to 215 People’s Alliance and then People’s Kitchen Philadelphia, where she is excited to share her fermentation and food preservation skills to help build food security, sovereignty, and community in Philadelphia. She is the author of two books, Sweet Potatoes (UNC Press) and Canning and Preserving (Centennial Media). Follow her on Instagram @preservingthesouth.

Valerie Erwin is a Philadelphia chef and social activist. For 12 years, until 2014, Valerie owned the critically acclaimed Geechee Girl Rice Cafe. Geeche Girl showcased the food of the Low Country—the coast of South Carolina and Georgia—where her grandparents were born. For two years Valerie was the General Manager of EAT Café, a West Philadelphia neighborhood restaurant with an innovative pay-what-you-can model. Since 2020, Valerie has been the program manager of Farm to Families, a produce access program of St Christopher’s Foundation for Children.

She believes in the power of food as a tool in the pursuit of social justice. As such, she has worked for several years with Cristina Martinez and Ben Miller in the fight for rights for undocumented restaurant workers and with the People’s Kitchen, and with Restaurant Opportunities Center, an advocacy organization for food industry employees.

Valerie has served on the board of the Southern Foodways Alliance—the country’s premier institution for the study of food and culture. She now serves on the board of C-CAP, a culinary scholarship program for high school students, and on the board of the Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network, an anti-homelessness organization.

When not at work, she spends her time catering, doing business consulting, and working on food related projects with cultural institutions such as the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Jazz Project.

Steph Drain is a Southwest Philly Native, cat dad, political organizer and social justice activist.

Steph has spent his entire adult life working to organize and activate community members to increase voter turnout and engagement. Steph has worked on campaigns to reallocate police funds into "real" community resources, shutting down the oil refinery in South Philly and helping to ensure that everyone has the ability to vote, without fear of intimidation or persecution.

Steph is committed to ensuring that poor and working class people have access to clean air and clean water. Additionally, he understands that sovereignty over means of production is key in any liberation fight for oppressed peoples. Steph started as a volunteer and is committed to feeding community members good ass, healthy food, grown in their backyards.

Jose was born in the Mapulaca part of Lempira, Honduras. In 2019, he moved to the United States and started working at South Philly Barbacoa. During the pandemic, he joined the People’s Kitchen as well as an important teacher on the farm, a fish butcher, and handling all the duties of a porter in the kitchen. He was born into a family of farmers, growing rice, corn, beans, bananas, sugarcane, squash, tomatoes, watermelons, and more.

Kabriana Kendall has had a passion for the world of Baking and Pastry Arts from a very young age.

At the age of 11 Kabriana started home based cupcake business called Lil’ Lady’s Cupcakes that specialized in gourmet cupcakes. In High School Kabriana attended Delaware County Technical School (DCTS)’s Culinary Arts and Hospitality Program and graduated in 2019. While at DCTS Kabriana participated in the Careers Though Culinary Arts Program (CCAP). With DCTS and CCAP, Kabriana participated in various culinary competitions and was awarded multiple college scholarships. Kabriana went on to receive a degree in Baking and Pastry Arts from The Culinary institute At Montgomery County Community College in 2021.

Over the years Kabriana has worked in bakeries and restaurants in Philadelphia. In 2020 during the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, CCAP connected Kabriana with The People’s Kitchen. At this time, Kabriana worked along side Chefs as a prep cook aiding in the production of 200 meals daily for those in need that were affected by the COVID 19 pandemic. With Baking and Pastry being Kabriana’s true passion, she was given the role as the Pastry Program Lead in 2022.

The allure of baking and pastry for Kabriana has always been the ability for her to share goodness with others!

Elaine is the Creative Director and resident Teaching Artist at PHonk!Philly, a free music festival she founded in 2021 utilizing the power of music, art, activism, and cultural preservation to move all people closer to collective liberation. Under her leadership PHonk!Philly has grown rapidly, expanding both its reach and impact to communities throughout the mid-Atlantic region. In 2022 PHonk!Philly was awarded a We Are Justice Outside, Liberated Paths grant in the Siconese/Lenape Wihittuk, River of the Lenape (Delaware River) Watershed region for its commitment to advancing racial justice in the outdoor and environmental movement, and creating meaningful change in the region’s communities.

A graduate of the 2021 Headlong Performance Institute Fellows Program, Elaine moved to Philadelphia from Washington DC in 2018 to study community-based art and support the city’s burgeoning urban gardening initiatives. Her efforts to bring farming education to underserved communities and combat food insecurity builds upon a longtime passion for working with the land. In 2013 she began her farm education, volunteering at Johnson’s Backyard Garden as a farm hand and used that experience to begin growing her own food, start a community garden in East Austin, and complete the School Garden Leaders program in Austin, TX. After relocating to Philadelphia, she worked extensively with West Philadelphia’s urban gardening community Farm on Florence and later became the Farm Manager at Max Paul Park, providing produce for Chefs Cybille St. Aude-Tate and Omar Tate of Honeysuckle Projects.

Elaine has over 12 years of experience working in community healthcare systems in Austin, TX providing outreach and case management services to individuals living with HIV. She served as a Performance Improvement Manager for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is a graduate of ASCO’s Quality Training Program, a 6-month data-driven course in quality improvement for oncology providers to measure performance, investigate quality and safety issues, and implement change. Elaine successfully expanded the Quality Training Program to key partners in Brazil and Greece.

Elaine continues to lead the operations and growth of PHonk!Philly and expand her involvement with community-based farm education training programs. Her ongoing work is enabled by support from the People’s Kitchen farm managers, volunteers, and community, and mentorship through Plowshare Farms in Pipersville, PA.

Kenny Chiu is a student activist from South Philadelphia. He has been with the People's Kitchen since the summer of 2020, contributing as a cook as well as interning over the summer, working in the free food gardens and farms. With the urban gardens, Kenny has helped transform vacant plots of land in Southwest Philadelphia into vibrant and nutritious community farms by working the land, planting fruits and vegetables, fundraising, and fighting for land justice. He has also founded Fridges & Family, a network of community fridges— one free food fridge is hosted by the People's Kitchen.

Kenny Chiu is also an organizer for Fossil Free Penn, the Save the UC Townhomes Coalition, and Students for the Preservation of Chinatown. He is currently studying for his degree in Urban Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.