Yolanda Owens

Yolanda Owens serves as Executive Director at Local Matters. Owens considers herself a homegrown Buckeye. A product of Columbus City Schools, she developed a connection to food at a young age and believes that all people deserve access to healthy, culturally-appropriate food and agricultural education–as discussed in her TEDx in 2020. She and her husband try to model this concept to their two "boss" daughters (no really, their initials are CEO), through his landscaping work and her work over the last 15+ years in agricultural education and food access work in Central Ohio. Yolanda has worked and built campaigns that are still currently in motion at a number of central Ohio organizations such as Mid-Ohio Food Collective, PrimaryOne Health, and the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) Yolanda is a graduate of the Ohio State University CFAES in agricultural communication and international economic and social development and with post-graduate studies in organizational leadership at Central Michigan University.