Meet our awesome new interns: Astrid Di Paolo and Declan Gray
The Culinary Tourism Alliance is thrilled to welcome two new faces to the team. Astrid Di Paolo and Declan Gray are the latest culinary tourism enthusiasts to join our growing team. Both are graduates of the Food Tourism Entrepreneurship post-grad program at George Brown College.
Astrid feels very fortunate to have found a way to weave her passions into her professional life as a travel advisor for a decade. In her roles, she was able to wear many hats; storyteller, project manager, booking agent, counsellor and sometimes magician, by creating epic travel experiences for her clients. Food was almost always central in fueling her memorable travel itineraries. Fundamentally, she believes that to change the world she can help the people already changing the world. In her new role in the Programs Department, she is supporting the Feast On program. A fitting role: as an avid Toronto sports fan, she truly understands the ups and downs of supporting local!
Declan is a lifelong food enthusiast, passionate about discovering, trying, and sharing food experiences. He believes that good, accessible food should be made available to all and that the key to knowing someone well is to learn about the food they love and why. Throughout his career, Declan has strived to work for organizations that believe in delivering high-quality products or experiences, educating consumers about what makes these products or experiences special, and providing fair payment to producers and suppliers. He is excited to work with the CTA and to apply his knowledge of community organizations and social dynamics around food to help grow the agri-tourism networks industry as well as increase awareness, accessibility and excitement for these unique businesses and their products.
The Food Tourism Entrepreneurship post-graduate program at George Brown College was launched in 2021. It prepares graduates to create "taste of place" experiences that support local economies by fostering relationships between stakeholders in agriculture, hospitality and tourism. It focuses on experiential learning in the form of field trips, guest speakers and industry events in Semester 1 and 2. The third semester is devoted to research and work placement with industry partners like us at the Culinary Tourism Alliance.