Derry Township farmer Rick Ebert has joined the board of directors at Food21, a Pittsburgh-area nonprofit that works to create sustainable jobs, economic opportunity and access to nutrition by converting undervalued community assets into food-centered ventures.
The group has partnered with the Larimer Consensus Group to renovate the gymnasium of the former Larimer School in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood, to create a community event center with a full-service catering kitchen as well as a separate demonstration kitchen whose programs will be managed by another Pittsburgh nonprofit, Flourishing Communities.
In Westmoreland County, Food21 has partnered with local farmers to create Allegheny Mountain Malt, locally grown grain sold to local commercial beer brewers.
Ebert is the longtime owner-operator of Ebert Family Farms in Blairsville, where he has supplied milk to Turner Dairy Farms for more than four decades and recently began transitioning to beef cattle, sheep, vegetables and a farm market. Ebert has been a member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau since 1982, including service as its vice president and president, and is a former member of the American Farm Bureau Federation, working on behalf of dairy farming and agriculture at the federal level.
“At Food21, we know that the foundation of the food system resides with the farmer,” said the nonprofit’s president Joe Bute. “A core focus of our mission is to support regional agriculture and to help farmers create sustainable income and on- farm investment. Rick Ebert will bring an invaluable perspective to these initiatives moving forward.”
