About Us
The Toni Tipton-Martin Foundation (TTMF) is a 501c3 organization founded in 2008 (under the name of The SANDE Youth Project) to increase community wellness by celebrating cultural heritage, role models, and ancestral recipes. With a $50,000 grant from the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, the TTMF has restructured its operations to further Toni’s legacy of award-winning food and nutrition journalism. As part of its mission and efforts around community building, the Foundation has partnered with numerous organizations to present innovative events such as scholarships for emerging food writers, after-school cooking programs, networking opportunities for youth food professionals, an annual healthy food festival for families, and the first symposium dedicated to African American foodways, Soul Summit.
Mission
The mission of the Toni Tipton-Martin Foundation is to help the next generation gain knowledge and skills in the areas of food, cooking, and cultural heritage writing from real American role models.
Vision
We aim to create a community of writers, editors, and cooks who question existing paradigms and values, and who support one another in our individual work so that the group reaches its highest potential.
Program Goals
Our work is rooted in, but not limited to, the study and practice of foodways and celebration of The Kitchen. The Kitchen has traditionally been known as the place where women come together to communicate stories, knowledge, and language that is not allowed elsewhere. It is also where the tools and skills are located that allow us to turn thought, ideas, and dreams into reality.
Program Design
TTMF will operate salons and workshops in a “third place,” which is defined as “a social setting, outside of home (first place) and work (second place), where people can gather, socialize, and build community, such as cafes, bars, libraries, or parks.” We will be a local and online community that celebrates and preserves culinary culture through interactive projects with the next generation. These may include: live and archived discussions, skills practicums, writing workshops, recipe development tutorials, and cooking classes held in places of historical significance.
The salons will deploy real role models from Toni’s books, her rare cookbook collection, and from her latest book, When Southern Women Cook: History, Lore, and 300 Recipes with Contributions from 70 Women Writers for these purposes:
- to share fundamental skills through the lens of food;
- to awaken writers to the ways we are silenced in the creative and professional work space;
- to explore what authentic women’s voices, language, and stories look like;
- to strategize means of healing, resisting, and create opportunities for women’s voices/stories to be valued.
Sample Practica
1. How to Write a Proposal:
Sessions on cookbook, memoir, and food history.
2. Food Prompts
To unblock the flow, find your voice, find another’s.
3. Recipe Development and Testing
4. Cultural Research Skills
5. Writing Memoirs
Moving from food writing to food memoir.
Cooking Classes
Garden to Table/A Taste of African Heritage cooking classes for adults and children, using research-based, culturally-relevant 6-week curriculum by Oldways Preservation Trust (oldwayspt.org). A founding objective for the organization is to offer these sessions in a historic space.
Become a Volunteer and Join Us!
We could always use volunteers at our next community outreach event. Tune in to our schedule for your opportunity to help us grow.
Meet our Team!
Staff and Advisory Community
Toni Tipton-Martin
Executive Director
Brandon Tipton
Graphic and Web Manager
Whitney Tipton
Assistant Director
Advisory Committee
A renowned team of food industry thought leaders collaborated to expand SANDE’s designation from a foundation offering mentoring/training activities for youth to a cultural heritage organization that “promotes artistic expression within a particular ethnic community; works for the preservation and promotion of the traditions, values and lifestyles of different cultural groups; organizes activities and events which promote cultural exchange locally or nationally; and encourages understanding and respect for different cultural heritages among the youthful members of the group as well as the mainstream population.”
They are:
- Ronni Lundy, bookstore owner, author of six cookbooks, journalist, and editor.
- Marcie Cohen Ferris, author, professor emeritus in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an editor for Southern Cultures, a quarterly journal of the history and cultures of the U.S. South.
- Psyche Williams-Forson, Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies at University of Maryland College Park.
- Sandra Gutierrez, nationally recognized food personality, cookbook author, freelance food writer, and cooking instructor.
- Cynthia Greenlee, University of Georgia Press Editor-at-Large.
- Von Diaz, writer, documentary producer, and author.
- Asha Gomez, chef, author and creator of The Third Space in Atlanta.
- Keia Mastriani, writer, cookbook author, baker, and photographer.
- Lindsey Ofcacek, co-founder, managing director & mentor, The LEE Initiative