Lachelle’s passion is to impact people through food. She believes food has the power to heal us nutritionally, mentally and socially.

Lachelle started teaching and building cooking curriculum back in culinary school when she started teaching cooking classes through Minneapolis Community Ed while she also launched her catering business, Chelles’ Kitchen LLC. Immediately upon graduating culinary school, she dove right into the restaurant industry, becoming the founding Executive Chef of Breaking Bread Cafe & Catering, a program of local food justice organization, Appetite for Change (AFC). In that role, Lachelle was able to gain experience and make connections in local restaurant and social justice work. After leaving AFC in 2018, she relaunched her catering business and became a culinary instructor at Saint Paul College (SPC). Additionally, Lachelle began teaching food business classes through the Neighborhood Development Center’s (of which she is also an alumni and vice board chair) entrepreneurship program. When the opportunity to become the Culinary Education Manager at The Good Acre (TGA) arose, it only made perfect sense to Lachelle who already had an aligning vision of creating a culinary vocational curriculum.

In her free time, Lachelle loves spending time with her family, 2 sons (Lyric 16 & Luke 13), enjoying nature, foraging, studying nutritional healing/plant medicine, being active and enjoying all forms of art, especially music and painting.