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Mitchell D. Gruber
10 King Street
Rochester, NY 14608 (585) 428-7538 (Office) mitch.gruber@cityofrochester.gov Chief
Program Officer, Foodlink B.S. Binghamton University PhD History University of
Rochester
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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.