Valerie Erwin is a social activist and a longtime Philadelphia chef. For 12 years, until 2014, Valerie owned the critically acclaimed Geechee Girl Rice Cafe. Geechee Girl showcased the food of the Low Country—the coast of South Carolina and Georgia—where her grandparents were born. For two years Valerie was the General Manager of EAT Café, a West Philadelphia neighborhood restaurant with an innovative pay-what-you-can model. Since 2020, Valerie has been the program manager of Farm to Families, a produce access program of St Christopher’s Foundation for Children.
Valerie has served on the board of the Southern Foodways Alliance—the country’s premier institution for the study of food and culture. She now serves on the boards of Wyck, a historic house and farm in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood, and The People’s Kitchen, a mutual aid kitchen.
When not at work, she spends her time catering, doing business consulting, and working on food related projects with cultural institutions such as the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Jazz Project.