A Vision for a Center
When Alice Julier interviewed for the Program Director position at Chatham University’s Falk School of Sustainability and the Environment in 2009, she came with a clear vision: Chatham needed more than just an academic program—it needed a Center for Food Systems. At the time, Western Pennsylvania had very little coordinated food systems work. As the Falk School developed, Alice proposed the idea for a Center year after year with administrators, funders, and community partners. She saw an opportunity to create a hub where practitioners, students, researchers, and funders could come together to innovate, share knowledge, and support the region’s farms, food businesses, and communities.
From the start, CRAFT was never a conventional center. It was scrappy, hands-on, and endlessly inventive.
The Napkin Sketch That Started It All
In 2017, frustrated by the lack of public access to food systems research, Alice and Cassandra Malis, Food Studies alum [enter year], sat in a Pittsburgh coffee shop and sketched a vision on a napkin: a Center built on three overlapping pillars—Research, Education, and Outreach. Alice knew such a Center could provide open-source, accessible, and educational resources to both support practitioners in the region and train a new generation of food system visionaries.
That napkin sketch became a grant to Rivers of Steel, leading to interviews with bakers, millers, farmers, and business owners about grains in Western Pennsylvania. The team built a community bread oven at Eden Hall, hosted workshops ranging from breadmaking to butchering, and engaged MA students as educators, facilitators, and co-creators.
Attention to Detail, Creativity, and Scrappiness
Every detail mattered. The Kitchen Lab was thoughtfully outfitted with perfectly chosen chairs and tables to create a welcoming, functional learning space. The Maker Space became a vibrant hub for creators, and the bread oven quickly became more than an oven—it became a community gathering place.
Grants were written with creativity and humor, sometimes as a chili bowl, sometimes as a sandwich, because necessity demanded flexibility and imagination. Scrappy, persistent, and playful, the CRAFT team tested, iterated, and tried again, always keeping impact at the center.
Growing Regional Impact
CRAFT quickly became a regional touchstone. In 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of Economic Development hired the team to provide research and content for Visit PA culinary tours, highlighting regional farms, food businesses, and the history of local food systems. Additional grants allowed CRAFT to map food systems resources, support food businesses, and develop programs like the Maker in Residence, the Bread and Grains Consortium, and workshops that remain beloved to this day.
CRAFT Today
Today, CRAFT continues its work at the farmhouse in Gibsonia, serving as a home for the region’s food systems work, a resource for practitioners, a training ground for emerging food products, and a model for collaborative, inclusive, and creative impact. More than 65 graduate students have trained with the Center, learning to think and act like food system innovators. Through it all, CRAFT demonstrates that with persistence, creativity, and a little fun, it’s possible to build something lasting, generative, and deeply needed.
From the beginning, the work has been fueled by a simple belief: the region needed this. It needed accessible education, a hub for collaboration, and people willing to be indomitable, scrappy, and a little mischievous in pursuit of impact. In its history and today, CRAFT has become exactly what was envisioned: a home for the region’s food systems work, a resource for practitioners, a platform for students, and a model for how to build inclusive, generative, and lasting impact. Along the way, the team has had fun, made a little mess, and discovered just how much joy there is in being scrappy—and in being needed.