Board of Directors 2025

LaToya Drake is a University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service professional with Kentucky’s Nutrition Education Program. LaToya holds a Master of Science in Integrative and Functional Nutrition from Saybrook University, CA) and received her BS Sociology from the University of Louisville. She has held a variety of titles in her decade-plus career in public service, including residential counselor, dependency case manager, substance abuse counselor, service coordinator, Extension Agent, and most recently Program Coordinator for the KY NEP.

Much of her career has been focused on getting folks fed. Whether that be working in food service, cooking meals for residents at youth facilities, organizing a community garden, or educating folks on proper use in her role as a food educator. In addition to her role as Program Coordinator, LaToya serves on the Feeding America Kentucky Heartland Board, Barren River Area Safe Space Board, the Mammoth Cave Region Advisory Council, the Sustainable Glasgow/Farmers’ Market Board, and as a mentor at the local Boys and Girls Club. LaToya believes that all community members deserve access to fresh and healthy food and her current efforts in the community focus on the promotion of local foods, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition education.

Ashton Potter has worked in public health and local food systems development for the past 15 years. She started her career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta working on foodborne disease outbreak detection and response and later working to develop best practices for physical activity and nutrition for childcare centers as a part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Child Care initiative.

Ashton launched and currently manages the Bluegrass Farm to Table for the City of Lexington where she works to cultivate new market opportunities for Kentucky farmers and on collaborative projects that increase access to and affordability of Kentucky farm food. Ashton is a Lexington native and holds a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) degree from the University of Kentucky College of Public Health.

Valerie Horn is a community leader who works with the Cowan Community Action Group, Whitesburg Farmers Market, and Community Agricultural Nutritional Enterprises Inc. (CANE Kitchen) to grow a healthier community. Valerie believes ailing communities have the power to heal from within. 

As a former CFA employee and  Chair of the City of Whitesburg Farmers Market, she has developed partnerships that have resulted in a Farmers Market with nationally recognized incentive programs including a fruit/vegetable prescription program, a USDA SFSP, and a University of Kentucky research project. Valerie is Chair of CANE Kitchen, a commercial kitchen with an event space that provides space for local producers and events.  Valerie is the Director of Cowan Community Action Group, Inc. and oversees programming including a Grow Appalachia Site,  Levitt Amp Music Series, and nationally recognized Mountain Music School.  

Valerie has served as a Director for a National Institute of Health community-based participatory research project while working at CFA and served as co-facilitator on a UK research project to promote fitness and nutrition thru the Farmers Market and CANE Kitchen. Valerie was recognized as a Healthy Communities Champion by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.  Valerie is a retired school counselor and now does community development and is a partner in Appalachian Groundswell.

Birch Bragg is Co-Owner and Operator of Locals Food Hub & Pizza Pub in Frankfort, KY. Opened in the July of 2021, Locals is dedicated to increasing access to locally produced foods for all members of the community and to increasing local food producers’ access to consistent and viable markets for their goods. Birch and his wife Michelle also established Nature Friendly Farms in north Franklin County they now call home, alongside their two children Iris and Cedar. He has worked closely with the West Sixth Brewing owners and team to create the agri-tourism destination that it is today.

Birch has also served as a state board member for the Hop Growers Alliance of Kentucky and served as the board president for the Friends of the Franklin County Farmers Market for two years. Currently, he sits on the Frankfort Area Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee and the Franklin County Tourist Commission Board of Directors and spends much of his time planning for the Summer 2024 opening of Locals second location in the Smoketown neighborhood of Louisville.

Having grown up on a small farm in Metcalfe County, Kentucky, Birch is dedicated to the revitalization of our rural and urban agrarian communities and has made the goal of pushing local food forward into the mainstream his life’s work since 2013. He firmly believes that a robust local food economy is the answer to so many of the challenges we face today as a society.
“(I believe) We must come together and focus our political and financial resources on rebuilding the infrastructure for our local food systems to once again thrive. We must, with urgency, drive the creation of policy that directly supports our local food farming families and, more specifically, drive demand for their products, all while increasing access to local food for all members of our society. By doing this, we can revitalize the health of our people, restore the health of our land, rebuild the strength of our local agrarian economies and revitalize the rural and urban communities that are the backbone of this Commonwealth we call home.”

Along with her family, Kenya is the Co-founder of SLAK Market Farm located in Lexington, Kentucky producing signature raw milk and halal meat products. She is first a wife and mother of 6 beautiful kids. The Abrahams have been on a farm for 6 years. 

When she’s not out building relationships with other farmers, she’s at home on the farm, helping her family, and keeping up with their agritourism by mentoring young people, inspiring visitors, and promoting the success of beginning farmers and agricultural innovators. 

Kenya has a strong dedication to utilize their farm as a place for serving the well-being of not only her family but for the well-being of the community that they have built through relationship-farming. The framework of her methods stems from her entrepreneurial free spirit and her background work experience in marketing, interpersonal communications, and business management. Kenya has begun her work as a liaison to farmers to help them push beyond the racism, limitations, and bottlenecks in the industry.

Angela “Angie” Hatton grew up in Letcher County, graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a degree in journalism in 1994, and worked as a newspaper reporter in Lexington and Frankfort. She then enrolled at the University of Kentucky College of Law where she graduated with a juris doctorate and has now been practicing law for 23 years. She has served Pike and Letcher Counties for three terms as 94th District Kentucky State Representative. She was elected House Minority Whip in 2019.

Prior to being elected State Representative, Angie was the Assistant County Attorney for Letcher County. She serves as attorney and board member for numerous volunteer organizations and was a Breaking Beans Fellow for CFA. She is a mother to Sam and Ellie, wife to David, and a proud Appalachian American.