Tricia Yeo, DTR 

You could call it a passion project. Or maybe even a side hustle. But for Tricia Yeo, with very young kids in the house, she was simply looking for some “grown uptime.” Having previously worked as a radio DJ and promotions director, she thought taking a community college class on nutrition would be interesting. 

“I took a nutrition class, and my mind was blown,” Yeo said. “First, for just how I was feeding my babies, the information was really, really important.” 

“I stayed after class and spoke to the professor. I said, ‘This is what I want to do with the rest of my life.’” 

Yeo went through the dietetics program at Camden County College and, as part of her community rotation, she came to the Food Bank as a volunteer. “I fell in love with the mission of the Food Bank.” So much so, Yeo continued volunteering for several years. Then in 2013, as the Food Bank was expanding its work into health and wellness, she was hired full time.

As a teacher of nutrition education, she’s most inspired by those aha moments in classes with parents or kids. “I enjoy taking a group of parents to the grocery store and going over nutrition labels and also getting them to overcome the misconception that eating healthy is too expensive.” 

Of all the audiences she has taught over the years, there is one group she is very happy she’s reached successfully. “My sons are not afraid of food. I could always put a vegetable in front of them and 100 percent they would try it. I attribute that to me having the knowledge to introduce healthy foods when they were very young. It just becomes normal. And healthy shouldn’t not be normal.”