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Meet the Chef Feeding Brooklyn’s Black and QTPOC Community

Produced by them. with State Farm | Kia Damon is the Florida-born, Brooklyn-based chef currently tackling food apartheid in the Black and QTPOC community with her organization Kia Feeds the People. Prior to this mission, she was the executive chef at Michelin-starred Manhattan restaurant Lalito, culinary director of beloved food publication Cherry Bombe, winner of Food Network’s Chopped, and a recipient of Forbes 30 Under 30. In this video, we meet Kia at the location of her newest venture, Auxilio Space, with her co-founder Zacarías González, to learn about how she is channeling her passion for food into her community and her hopes for the future. To learn more or donate, go to

Released on 07/28/2021


[Speaker] When I'm cooking,

I feel like it comes from an extremely spiritual place.

It's very soothing work, it's very peaceful work.

I draw my inspiration from my cooking, my recipes,

from my experience of being a Florida woman.

It's the people, it's the food that we cook,

it's my grandmother who fishes all the time,

that's why I'm always frying up a fish.

My cooking comes from a place of comfort

and to be able to give that to other people,

it just makes my heart glow.

My name is Kia Damon.

I run 'Kia Feeds the People'

and I'm just an all around food girl.

Kia Feeds the People focuses on food distribution

that want to get organic and free produce

and pantry items to the community.

We work with the black and brown community,

the unemployed, unhoused, queer, and trans,

and anyone that doesn't have the food that they need.

Zachariah and myself,

we source our produce by just hitting up our farmer friends,

you have to support your local farmers,

that only boosts the nutrition that you have,

and then we'd post up out a park to distribute it.

[upbeat music]

Being a good neighbor means looking out for that person

even when they don't know that you're looking out for them.

You do it with a sense of dignity and that person's dignity

in mind, it's not just a them problem, it's a us problem.

Anybody can make a difference

and all of those little drops in the lake,

they just make a larger wave.