State of the Plate Speaker Series

Healthy Champaign County's Food Access Alliance presents the State of the Plate Speaker Series, monthly presentations to inform and inspire participation in the upcoming March 26, 2026 Food Summit.

On Thursday, December 11th, at 12pm, join us for our next topic highlighting "The Role of Food in our Celebrations and Traditions, Shared through Stories" with speakers Sirisha Bhandaru, cook and culinary instructor, and Yanabe Schroeder, UIUC Student and creator of Project Green. The session will take place in the Flatlander Classroom at Common Ground Food Co-op. RSVP using the form below.

Yanaba Schroeder (Navajo) is a senior in Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois. She is the creator of Project Green, a community-based food and gardening initiative that grew from her research on soil, health, and access to fresh foods. Her work has become both an academic project and a cultural awakening that reconnects her to Navajo teachings about land, food, and community care.

Sirisha Bhandaru grew up in Andhra Pradesh and Bombay, India where she spent many summers with her grandmother, who taught her how to cook authentic dishes from scratch using home grown ingredients. As she grew older and her family moved to different regions of India for her father’s work, she was exposed to the unique range of regional Indian cuisines. She moved to Champaign, IL nearly two decades ago. Sirisha has been a longtime local food enthusiast and uses Central Illinois ingredients to inspire her recipe development. Since 2016, Sirisha has taught dozens of cooking classes teaching regional Indian cuisines and has adjusted her recipes to highlight local and seasonally-relevant ingredients. In addition to cultural cuisine instruction, Sirisha also manages her popular Instagram food blog page, My Craves and Raves, known for professional food styling and photography, food storytelling, and recipes.