About our Founder

Marin Milken, 17

Marin is a current junior in high school and has lived in Los Angeles for all of her life. While she has many hobbies and interests, from a young age she has always had a special interest in food and the joys that cooking can bring to the community around her. As she has developed her own skills and culinary abilities, Marin has since developed a passion to educate those around her and give back to her community in whatever way she can. She founded Our Seat at the Table during the COVID pandemic in 2020 as a way to do this. Below is her mission statement and reasoning for creating this initiative:

“In the midst of the pandemic, I found myself having read a million books, shared a million TikToks with friends, and walked hundreds of loops around the block – what else could I do? My older brother played video games with his friends online. This was not appealing to me, yet I understood why it was meaningful for him. He was thinking, creating and connecting with his friends.

Since no one in my house is a good cook and we couldn’t order in, I started making dinner. What began as me teaching myself through YouTube turned into Zoom get-togethers where I taught groups of friends how to make the perfect latte, or tasty grilled chicken. They began cooking for their families. Then, my mom told our neighbors on our daily loop about my cooking. Somehow, I became the middle school chef who created a social connection activity for my friends – which ballooned into a social distancing gathering mechanism for our neighbors.


Through these meals, I realized food’s power to bring people together - and that everyone should have access to these types of experiences and nourishment. But the more I read about how food shapes cultures, the more I also learned about food insecurity - how can people define themselves when they don't have the access to the food they need to nourish themselves? What does a lack do for an individual/community/nation?


I founded Our Seat At the Table to help tackle these questions and issues, all while ensuring that more youth feel they have a seat at the table. ”