Councilmember Mitch Gruber, At-Large

 Mitch Gruber was born and raised in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Binghamton University in 2006, and completed his undergraduate education with a semester at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa.  

Upon returning to Rochester, Mitch worked as an ABC Head Start teacher on Hudson Avenue. This experience taught Mitch a great deal about the challenges of concentrated poverty in Rochester. He was most motivated, however, by how food insecurity and food waste negatively impacted the health and education of many of the students in his class. 

Mitch met Tom Ferraro, the founder and Executive Director of Foodlink, in 2008, and began working with him on addressing the root causes of hunger in the greater Rochester area. Since then, Mitch has become Foodlink’s Chief Program Officer and has helped develop and implement some of the most effective public health, anti-poverty programs in the region, including: Curbside Market, Lexington Ave. Urban Farm, and a culinary job training program. This worked prompted Governor Cuomo to appoint Mitch to his Council on Hunger and Food Policy. 

While at Foodlink, Mitch decided to delve deeper into the historical causes of food inequality in urban areas. Mitch completed a PhD in history from the University of Rochester in 2016. His dissertation, “The Degradation of the Food Retail Landscape,” examines the history of the food retail trade in Rochester and the role city, state, and federal governments can play in creating a more equitable food system. 

Mitch and his wife, Amy, were married at the Rochester Public Market in 2016 and have owned and lived in a house in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood since 2014. He is excited to bring a public health lens to Rochester City Council and is honored to serve the city he loves.