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MEET THE TEAM.

The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger is a public non-profit grantor dedicated to ending childhood hunger in Montana. With the help of our team members, board members, and partners, we work tirelessly to ensure every child in Montana has access to nutritious food. Join us in our effort to end childhood hunger.

STAFF & CONTRACTORS.

Lisa Lee

Co-Executive Director & Food Systems Change Advocator

Lisa Lee is a Registered Dietitian who dedicates her time to ending childhood hunger because she knows this is one problem we can solve. Lisa is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger (MT-PECH), where she focuses on expanding food systems in ways that help all Montanans reach nutrition security. From 2012-2023, Lisa served as Director of the Montana No Kid Hungry campaign, which she launched. There, Lisa and her team focused on increasing kids’ access to food by awarding more than $3 million in grants to local and statewide partners who provide school breakfasts and summer meals to kids across Montana.

 

Lisa engages deeply in efforts to improve food, nutrition, and health in the Helena community where she lives with her family. She has chaired the Kids Nutrition Coalition of Lewis and Clark County since its inception in 2013. She’s also a member of the Helena Public Schools District Wellness Committee and has been since 2018. 

 

Lisa has also worked for the Montana Child and Adult Care Food Program, which helps kids establish healthy eating habits at an early age. Before moving to Montana, she was Sodexo’s District Manager in Vancouver, Canada, where she oversaw food and nutrition services for 14 hospitals and long-term care facilities. Lisa has a wide range of experiences in different settings, all focused on hunger, nutrition, and improving health across the lifespan.  

 

In her free time, Lisa is a traveling soccer mom for her two talented kids. When she can, she enjoys mountain biking and hiking with her dog Lucy, gardening, traveling, and eating delicious meals created by her husband Steve.

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KayAnn Miller

Co-Executive Director & Food Systems Change Advocator

KayAnn Miller (descended Potawatomi) is the Co-Executive Director of The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger (MT-PECH). Previously, she served as Communications and Engagement Specialist for Montana No Kid Hungry. KayAnn has a background in Indigenous food foraging, gardening, harvesting, and preparation and has worked to Indigenize school food pantries since 2018 when she served as an executive sous chef at MSU. During her time there, KayAnn partnered with many stakeholders both on and off MSU’s Bozeman Campus to bring Indigenous foods to MSU’s dining hall, retail, and catering menus and food operations. Previously, KayAnn worked in communications for the National Cattlemen’s Association (before it became the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association), the American Sheep Industry Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and the Agricultural Retailers Association, among others. KayAnn has an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and undergraduate degrees in history and journalism from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the proud single mom of a son serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.

 

KayAnn’s current research interests are situated at the intersection of mental health, nutrition, and culture, and hypothesizes that diet plays a key role in mental-health disparities experienced in Indigenous communities in Montana as measured by rates of depression, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts. KayAnn finds the potential links between adequate nutritional intake, depression and suicide reduction intriguing from a cultural standpoint, given the high nutritional quality of many pre-contact Indigenous diets. KayAnn brings this line of thinking to MT-PECH. Click here for links to current research on the roles nutrition and nutrition-security play in kids’ mental health, physical health, school performance, and future ability to earn.

Craig Crawford

School Innovation Advocator

Craig Crawford is superintendent of schools in Stanford, Montana. He has 22 years of experience as an educator. He owned his own Domino’s Pizza Franchise in a previous life. Craig has served as president of his local Kiwanis Club, president of the local Salvation Army Board of Directors, President of the Montana Association of Elementary and Middle School Principals, and currently serves as president of the Central Montana Association of School Superintendents. He is the 2023-2024 Central Montana Superintendent of the Year.


Craig does keynote speaking and leadership training for schools and corporations through his leadership consulting company, Focused Consulting (www.focusedconsulting.biz). He worked with Montana No Kid Hungry and, now, MT-PECH helping to battle child food insecurity and hunger in Montana and has done a TEDTalk about bullying.

 

Craig was born in New Jersey (youngest of six) and lived in Tennessee, Texas, and Georgia before getting to his heart’s home, Montana. He's lived here for thirteen years and can’t imagine living anywhere else. Craig spends his spare time building his retirement cabin in the mountains, hiking, camping,  backpacking,  fishing, and playing golf. His iPod is full of music (mostly 80’s and Tay Tay). He is a warehouse of obscure movie lines and enjoys laughing. Each March Craig temporarily loses his mind for the NCAA basketball tournament. He has two amazing kids who are young adults and the best accomplishments of his life. He also has a dog, named “Montana” (yep, he loves it that much!)

Robin Vogler

School Nutrition-Security Advocator

Robin Vogler served Somers MT School District #29 for 18 years as a Teacher and Food Service Director as well as the wellness program coordinator. During her time with the School District, Robin revised the school lunch program in a big way, incorporating scratch recipes featuring many locally grown products. Beyond her responsibilities as a food service director, Robin was able to build a strong farm-to-
school program, host FoodCorps and AmeriCorps service members, create school gardens and a hydroponic greenhouse, largely through grant funding. She taught a nutrition elective to seventh and eighth grade students and included gardening and cooking in the curriculum. Robin was honored to represent her District at State and National conferences over the course of her career.

 

After her recent retirement, Robin began contracting with The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger to implement summer non-congregate meal programs across the state. She also works with the Farm to School Institute to coach Montana schools in their F2S efforts.

 

Robin is passionate about good education, a healthy environment, wholesome food, kids, animals, and the creative process. She enjoys spending time in nature, good food, travelling, gardening, and especially her family, friends, and two dogs.

BOARD MEMBERS.

 

 

 

 

 

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Virginia (Ginny) Lee Mermel, MS, PhD, CNS

Credentials: MS Nutrition; Ph.D.  Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, University of California, Davis. Board-certified Human Nutrition Specialists (CNS). 

 

Work History: Ginny devoted the first half of her career to health-risk management for medical nutrition firms. She also taught college nutrition and authored and contributed to college nutrition and wellness textbooks. 

 

For the past 16 years, Ginny has focused on improving school nutrition, reducing student food insecurity by addressing social/cultural inequities that contribute to poverty, hunger, and homelessness. During that time, Ginny:

  • Chaired the School Health Advisory Committee for Billings Public Schools (BPS) for 4 years

  • Served as a School Wellness Coach for Montana Team Nutrition, a division of USDA, for 6 years 

  • Established and directed - without salary - a non-profit BackPack Meals, Teen Pantry, and Elementary Pantry Programs for BPS in 2009, 2011, and 2022 respectively, until retirement her retirement in February 2023. These programs provide 500 to 700 very-low-income students with meals for weekends and school holidays each week. She also mentored communities throughout the Intermountain West so those communities could also start backpack meal programs  

  • Served as an active decade-long member of The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger

  • Served as Nutrition Lead for Best Beginnings of Yellowstone County, Healthy By Design Committee, and the Community Health Needs Assessment for Yellowstone County to ensure nutrition issues were addressed  

 

Board Experience:

  • Rimrock Opera, 12 years. Budgeting, fund raising, hiring, terminating staff.

  • NOVA Center for the Performing Arts.  Helped save this asset (formerly Venture Theater) for the community, 6 years.

  • Public Policy Chair Montana Dietetic Association. Lobbied congress to pass the 2010 Health Care Act and include nutrition counseling, 4 years.

  • Currently in 4th year on the Family Promise of Yellowstone Valley Board. Chair FPYV silent auction; Member of Housing Expansion Committee increasing emergency and low-income housing in Yellowstone County

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Shelly Sutherland, Ed.D.,

Chair - Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger

Credentials: Doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Virginia (1996), with specialization in program evaluation. 

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Work History: Shelly spent the first 15 years of her careering practicing school psychology and leading a program-evaluation department in a large Northern Virginia school district (Prince William County Public Schools).

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Since moving to Montana in 2003, Shelly has focused on program development, management, and evaluation as well as coalition development and coordination. In Montana, Shelly has:

  • Served as the primary evaluator for the Montana Nutrition and Physical Activity Program (NAPA), which promoted community-based strategies for increasing access to healthy foods and active communities initiatives (2006-2011) 

  • Developed and coordinated a community-based coalition in Big Horn County for the purpose of improving early childhood systems (2012-present). 

  • Managed a Parents as Teachers home visiting program to promote healthy development, including an emphasis on early nutrition. 

  • Established and directed a community-based coalition to promote active communities  

  • Developed and oversaw the River Valley Farmers Market (2015-2022), as one strategy to promote community wellness

  • Served as Vice President of Community Development at a local community health center (2017-2020), with an emphasis on expanding Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) resources for the whole community 

  • Served as an active, decade-long member of The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger

 

Board Experience:

  • Served on the Helping Hands Food Bank Board of Directors for 2 years.

  • Served on the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture Board of Directors for 3 years.

  • Shelly currently serve as President of the Healthy Communities, Inc. Board of Directors, a local Montana nonprofit and 501c3 organization, which promotes community wellness 

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Wynona (Nonie) Woolf, MPH, RD, LN

Credentials: Nonie’s credentials include MPH - Nutrition, University of Hawaii at Manoa. BS General Dietetics, Washington State University; Pullman, WA. She has maintained her registered dietitian status with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) since 1979 and has a Medical Nutrition License through the State of Montana.

 

Nonie Woolf presently enjoys retirement serving as Board Chair and one of the original founders of FAST (Food Access and Sustainability Team) Blackfeet, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving food security, providing nutrition education, and reclaiming and building food sovereignty within the Blackfeet Nation. Prior to this volunteer position, Nonie retired as a Public Health Nutritionist with Indian Health Service (IHS), Blackfeet Service unit, and USPHS Commissioned Corp, Captain 0-6 Officer after 30 years of service.

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Work History: In her career, Nonie provided nutrition and dietetics programing, training, and counseling to American Indian people in Western Oregon; to IHS and tribal staff nationwide through Nutrition & Dietetics Training Program workshops as a training officer and Program Chief based in Santa Fe, NM; and in Montana at the Blackfeet Service Unit in Browning, MT.

PARTNERS HELPING US MAKE CHANGE.

We are proud to work with a variety of partners in our mission to end childhood hunger in Montana. From local schools to community groups, state agencies and non-profits, to co-ops and national organizations, we collaborate with groups that share our commitment to this important cause. Together, we make a meaningful difference in the lives of children and families in our state.

THANK YOU, FOUNDING MEMBERS! 

Without the time, effort, and service of its Founding Members, MT-PECH would not exist today. Nor would we be in a position to envision and work toward a future where every child in Montana is not only well-fed but well-nourished. MT-PECH is indebted to the contributions of the following individuals.

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  • Nonie Woolf                                        

  • Ginny Mermel                                      

  • Shelly Sutherland

  • KayAnn Miller

  • Linda Cleatus

  • Lisa Lee

  • Katie Harding

  • Joan Schmidt

  • Jamie Kocsondy

  • Kim Lloyd

  • Érica Rubino

  • Thomas McClure

  • Stephanie Moodry

  • The Rev. Valerie Webster

  • Sophie Nelson

  • Brianna Routh

  • Elizabeth Swank

  • Sarah Riddle

  • Brianna Hope

  • Lorianne Burhop

  • Ann Waickman

  • Stacey Black

  • Sabrina Rubich

  • Katie Bark

  • Jenny Ellis

  • Rachelle Sartori

  • Chris Emerson

  • Bonnie Buckingham

  • Michael McCormick

  • Kim Gilchrist

  • Lisa Bullock

  • Anna Whiting Sorrell

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