When youth food facilitators connect: Inside the Mind Your Food facilitator gathering
May 14, 2026
Mind Your Food facilitators gather on Lake Superior for an ice fishing experience—sharing food, stories, and time on the land.
On a frozen stretch of Lake Superior, a group of people sit shoulder to shoulder, ice fishing and sharing stories between bites of lunch on the snow.
Welcome to the second annual facilitator gathering for the Mind Your Food program.
Mind Your Food is a hands-on youth program that supports positive mental health and connection through food-based learning. The program brings together young people aged 12 to 19 to explore cooking, food traditions, food justice, and leadership, all the while building participants’ confidence, skills, and community. It’s supported by Right To Food and delivered through partner organizations across 5 provinces in 7 communities in Canada.
Across the country, Mind Your Food programs are adapted to the needs of each community. The curriculum is designed to strengthen protective factors for youth wellbeing, with a commitment to meeting young people where they are. Since launching in 2019, the program has engaged more than 675 youth across partner sites.
Beyond cooking and sharing meals together, participants are encouraged to explore their relationships with food, community, and the land through activities such as mindfulness, food journaling, and sharing food stories with family and Elders. Programs may also include land-based activities like fishing, kayaking, medicine picking, harvesting, and donating fruit to the community.
While the program is rooted in food, its impact goes far beyond the dining table. Food is the program’s entry point, but underneath it are deeper layers: relationships, confidence, and a sense of belonging.
A space to connect and learn
From February 24–27, Mind Your Food facilitators from Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan gathered in Thunder Bay for the program’s second annual facilitator gathering, hosted by Roots CFC. Over three days, facilitators reflected on their work with youth in their communities, and shared challenges and ideas.
The gathering also gave facilitators the chance to experience many of the same activities offered through Roots CFC’s Mind Your Food program. The group participated in ice fishing, beading with a local Indigenous artist, and cooking together.
For Krish Dineshkumar, Food Program Manager at Sumac CFC in Toronto, the gathering offered a rare opportunity to step back from the day-to-day work and learn from others doing similar work across the country.
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It was really meaningful to see how other people operate in their local contexts.
It opened up my mind to how you can approach the program depending on who your youth are.
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Krish Dineshkumar, Food Program Manager, Sumac CFC
One of Krish’s most memorable moments was the ice fishing trip on Lake Superior. “I’d never stood on a Great Lake before,” he said. “It was grounding—but also a reflection of how the Mind Your Food team at Roots CFC treats their youth. There’s so much care and enthusiasm for helping people experience something new.”
Bringing the learning home
Back in Toronto, Krish has been thinking about how to bring some of the gathering’s lessons and activities into Sumac CFC’s own Mind Your Food program.
He was especially struck by “Taste of the Land,” an immersive activity developed by Mind Your Food facilitators at Roots CFC. It uses all five senses—taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound—to help participants explore what grows and lives in the land around them. During the activity, participants listen to recordings of local nature sounds, smell plants and oils connected to the region, taste ingredients rooted in the local landscape, and interact with tactile materials tied to the environment around Thunder Bay.
“It’s a really incredible tactile way for people to feel connected to the place that they’re from,” Krish said.
Krish is now working with Sarah Clement, Mind Your Food facilitator at Harmony CFC in Toronto. Together, they’re adapting Taste of the Land for an urban setting that will resonate with Mind Your Food participants at their respective CFCs.
They hope the activity will enable Toronto-based participants to explore their own relationships to food and place—and community.
“You’re teaching a life skill,” Krish said. “But you’re also creating space for how people relate to themselves, to each other, and to their community.”
Click here more information about the Mind Your Food program.
