Wholeshare.com is reinventing the way people think about buying clubs in New York, connecting regional food producers to residents online. Contact me to find out how. Bed-Stuy Residents: Click here to learn how you can enjoy better than co-op prices on sustainable, organic, local, ethical food, minus the workshift.

Since 2005, Melissa has engaged communities around wellness, food, and farming as a Health Coach, Yoga/Meditation Instructor, Community Chef, and Local Food Advocate. An Holistic Entrepreneur, Melissa’s work intersects food, farming, ecology, health, race, class, privilege, power, self-care, and self-reliance. Melissa has contributed to Civil Eats, blogs for Bed-Stuy Patch, and has been featured on Sanura Weathers’ My Life Runs on Food and Hot Grease with host Nicole A. Taylor. You can email Melissa at melissa@hol-life.com, or say hello on linkedin, facebook, or twitter. 

Book a Workshop

My workshops and trainings are hands-on experiences that cover community food education, social engagement, and preparedness.

Workshops include Food as Community, Traditional Nutrition, Badass Blending, Cooperative Self-Reliance, Breathe on Purpose, Simply Social Media, Just Get Rid of It!, In Case Sh!t Happens, Good Food for the S.E.O.U.L. and Everybody All In.

Current Availability through 2013: March: open, April – June: limited availability, July – December: open

Click here for a full description of workshops.

Schedule a Consultation or Coaching Session

As a Local Food Advocate, I help organizations and individuals empower their communities around good food (sustainable, organic, local, ethical). Schedule a consultation to determine what kind of community food project aligns with your vision and will best engage your community. Get in touch.

As an Ideation Consultant, my brainstorming sessions will help you jumpstart your community outreach and engagement campaigns, break through challenges, and see the bigger picture. Click here to schedule a brainstorming session.

As a Wellness & Lifestyle Design Coach, I incorporate simple living, real food, and Yoga to help self-employed and freelance professionals redefine success, create balance, and get unstuck. Click here to learn more.

Short and long-term consulting and coaching is available.

Social Media

How do people find out about your community food project? How do you educate your community around food, farming, wellness, and social justice? What tools are you using to document and archive your work? Social Media is a powerful tool for leveraging your online and onground marketing and outreach campaigns as well as your legacy. I offer one-on-one and group instruction as well as live blogging and social media for conferences and events.   Click here to see me in action. 

Join Me at An Upcoming Event

I support and promote local food and farming advocacy and outdoor recreation. Check out my events calender and join me over at Outdoor Afro.

I can also help you create a private farm to fork itinerary for you and your group.

Email melissa@hol-life.com for more information.

Bio

I am a third generation Brooklynite, born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I attended Brooklyn Technical High School where I majored in Media Communications and went on to study photography at School of Visual Arts.

My teenage years were spent largely volunteering alongside my mother with the Telephone Pioneers of America throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan (walk, run, ride, etc – I have the T-shirt!), and serving as a Youth Leader for the All Stars Project, where I entered the second class of the Development School for Youth, worked on the A/V team for the All Stars Talent Show Network (ASTSN), and was part of the youth team that helped launch the ASTSN in Newark, New Jersey; Oakland, California;  and Amsterdam, Netherlands.

In 2005, after graduating from Institute for Integrative Nutrition, I founded Hol-Life Industries, LLC, an holistic lifestyle umbrella promoting lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS), starting with a health coaching practice that showed transitioning vegetarians how to eat vegetables.

Since then, I’ve led wellness workshops, taught yoga classes, and managed three farmers markets throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, and The Bronx, co-led Bed-Stuy Farm Share, a Community Supported Agriculture Project for three years, and developed several niche blogs covering plant-based nutrition, wellness & lifestyle design, and quick and easy blender recipes.