We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susie Cover. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susie below.
Hi Susie, thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?
At our benefit at Chelsea Market last year, Sofie Kanayama, a member of our 2023 class of apprentices, came up to me. We invited all of our apprentices to join us at this benefit, and Sofie had apprenticed at Ice House farm, a goat dairy in Vermont, where she’d had the opportunity to learn to make cheese. She handed me a beautifully handmade card, printed with a linocut she’d carved herself. She told me ASLF had changed her life, and allowed her to pursue her passion for cheese in a way she never expected to be able to do. I had known Sofie had a love for craft and design, but receiving this card reminded me how every one of our remarkable apprentices continues to further the legacy Anne Saxelby left behind, of taking her passion and using it to truly have a positive impact on people. We can never underestimate the meaning of taking the time and care to express real appreciation. All of our apprentices represent an invaluable commitment to deepening the relationships – between farmers and beyond – that sustain us, and our communities.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m currently the Executive Director of the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund (ASLF), a nonprofit that sponsors fully-funded apprenticeships for young adults to live and work on sustainable farms. Earlier in my career I worked for many years as a caterer and private chef. I eventually founded and served as the executive chef for an online delivery food service called Susie’s Supper Club, and launched a line of frozen meals under the same brand for Whole Foods. I later developed a cookbook, The Supper Club: Kid-Friendly Meals the Whole Family Will Love, before working as the Product Development Chef for Babeth’s Kitchen, a premium frozen grocery in Manhattan. Before ASLF, I most recently served as the Vice President of Operations for Butter Beans Kitchen, a food service company providing meals daily to charter and private schools in New York City. Anne Saxelby was a cheesemaker, cheesemonger, and champion of American farmstead cheese. When she suddenly passed away of a heart condition in 2020, her family founded ASLF in her name, to carry on her legacy by uplifting and inspiring the next generation of leaders in food and agriculture. This year, we hope to send 100 apprentices to our 60 farm partners, commencing our third year of connecting passionate young people with wonderful sustainable farms.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’ve pivoted many times in terms of my career path, but I think about my most recent move from Butter Beans Kitchen to ASLF. I went from running operations at a large-scale food service company to directing a nonprofit. Both organizations require the management of many different moving parts. At Butter Beans, we provided over 10,000 meals every day to New York schools, and at ASLF, we’re simultaneously reviewing hundreds of apprentice applications, matching apprentices and farms, fundraising and applying for grants, and so much more. I still depend on those executive operational skills I utilized at Butter Beans Kitchen, but I’m able to employ them to forward a new mission I feel so drawn to– to supporting sustainable agriculture and young people who want to learn.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
We’re trying to spread the word about ASLF and our mission in whatever ways we can. We held a number of information sessions all over the country this year. We went all over New York, visiting schools like CityTech, NYU Steinhardt, Columbia University, and Bard, as well as other organizations and establishments we love, like Emma’s Torch and Bedford Cheese Shop. Our Director of Programs, Kristina Graeber, and I traveled to the West Coast to speak at Oregon State University, UC Davis, Claremont McKenna, and UCLA. We offered virtual information sessions at several schools, but we’re constantly thinking of new ways to reach more interested people. We hosted about 3,000 people for our annual benefit at Chelsea Market, and we hope that anyone who attends or comes to help out at this amazing event keeps talking about ASLF, or wants to learn more about what we do (save the date for this year’s event – September 19th in NYC!!). We want more and more people to keep applying to ASLF, but we also want to continue to uplift every apprentice who has already been a part of our community. This year, we launched our Alumni Association, a platform that brings alumni together, but also connects them with advising and mentoring support from our Alumni Advisory Council, which consists of trusted business advisors, farmers, educators, chefs and others. We believe that investing in our ever-expanding network of dedicated apprentices means supporting them as they move onward to positively impact their communities and the environment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.annesaxelbylegacyfund.org/
- Instagram: @annesaxelbylegacyfund
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anne-saxelby-legacy-fund/about/
Image Credits
Christine Han Giada Paoloni