Our Mission

The guiding spirit of The Foundation is its namesake, Chef Edna Lewis, an early champion of Southern cookery who helped educate and mentor generations of chefs and food enthusiasts while celebrating the African American culinary community and culture. Today an expanded Board of Trustees, led by Chairperson, Mashama Bailey, continues this legacy while providing new culinary programming, scholarships and training to serve an expanded Mission to honor and extend the legacy of Edna Lewis by creating opportunities for African Americans in the fields of cooking, agriculture, food studies, and storytelling.

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The Foundation advocates for the Southern tradition of the original farm-to-table lifestyle, eating with the seasons, a sense of community, and the satisfactory feeling that hard work is always rewarded by good food.