About the TVFC
The Treasure Valley Food Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization promoting a vibrant local food economy in the Treasure Valley Food Shed of Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon. We created TVFC when we realized there was a need for a local organization to focus on the food system as a whole.
We believe the Boise Farmers Market is the most visible way to interact with our local food system and to support local farmers. As partners we are working toward a year-round, permanent market facility. This facility will not only provide an outdoor area for the summer market, but will have an indoor selling space that could be rented for community events, and food hub elements, such as storage and a commercial kitchen.
We are currently operating as a small board of volunteers. We collaborate with businesses, educational institutions, governmental entities, non-profit organizations, and individual citizens around food system issues.
To contact us, email treasurevalleyfoodcoalition@gmail.com
Board Members
Amy Hutchinson
Board Member
Amy Hutchinson is a Boise District educator and co-founder of the Boise Urban Garden School. She
gardens on an acre and a half in Boise, enjoys cooking with locally grown, produced and foraged foods
and is currently studying herbalism. She was a TVFC board member from 2011 to 2017 and re-joined in
2019. Together with Susan Medlin, she started the Village Table to help fund local farm projects
important to the local food system.
Janie Burns
Chair
Janie has been active in providing local food for local people since 1989 when she started selling organic vegetables at Boise’s first downtown farmers’ market. She is a charter vendor of the new Boise Farmers Market where she sells grass-fed lamb and pastured poultry raised on her 16-acre Meadowlark Farm south of Nampa. Over the past 28 years, she has raised a wide variety of crops, sold to restaurants, CSA’s and to retail stores and participated in many events raising awareness about food system issues.
Susan Medlin
Treasurer
Susan is an educator, cook, gardener, and food enthusiast who has actively promoted local sustainable agriculture for many years, including several years at BUGS where she developed the culinary program, and three years as treasurer of the Treasure Valley Food Coalition. She was an early promoter of backyard chickens, has worked privately with farmers, chefs and the community to increase local food consumption, and helped start the Village Table to raise money for local farm projects.
Jessica Harrold
Board Member
Gardening started Jessica’s interest in local food, and farming turned it into a passion. Seeing how local food was grown on a larger scale showed her the importance of our local farmers. She now manages a microfarm with her husband, and hopes to inspire and promote other local farmers. Jessica also co-owns Lark & Larder, a local store focusing on regionally grown and produced food and gifts.
Maria Minicucci
Board Member
Maria is a New England transplant, with many years of trying to put down roots into Idaho’s desert soil. After pining for the farm stands on every back road of her youth, she joined the efforts to support locally produced food – mostly on the consumption side.
TJ Stevens
Board Member
TJ is the General Manager for Idaho’s Bounty Cooperative, our local food distributor. She serves on the IORC Food and Ag Task Force, the Chamber of Commerce Ag and Food Steering Committee, and the Idaho Summit for Hunger Relief Local Foods Track planning committee, She also served on the Boise Co-op Board of directors for 5 years, 3 as president and 1 as secretary as well as the Wood River Valley Harvest Festival Steering committee for 2 years.