Mr. Curt Ellis

(FSPF-06)
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Portland, Oregon
United States

Focus Areas

Economic Security
Rural Development
Urban Development / Revitalization
Education
Arts & Humanities
Food Systems
Food Systems
Leadership
Communications

Biography

Curt Ellis grew up in Oregon and found his passion for food and sustainability at The Mountain School and Yale, then moved to Iowa to investigate the role of subsidized commodities in the American obesity epidemic. The film he co-created there, King Corn, produced with Ian Cheney and Aaron Woolf, received a national theatrical release and PBS broadcast, helped drive policy discussion around the Farm Bill, and earned a George Foster Peabody Award. Under a Food and Community Fellowship with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Ellis helped launch the mobile garden project Truck Farm and directed Big River, a sequel to King Corn, for Discovery's Planet Green. Ellis is a Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneur, a recipient of the Heinz Award, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR. He now serves as co-founder and Executive Director of the national nonprofit organization FoodCorps, which recruits emerging leaders for a year of service building school gardens and connecting kids to healthy food.