Chefs Feeding Kids: The Show’s Charity Partner

Trade shows are transactional by design. Buyers walk, exhibitors demo, orders get written. What makes the California Restaurant Show’s charity partnership interesting is that the organization on the other end of it was built by people who came up in exactly this environment - a chef with 28 restaurant openings behind him, a former International Pizza Expo executive, a foodservice distribution sales VP. Chefs Feeding Kids is not a cause borrowed from outside the industry. It is the industry, pointed at kids.

The organization is listed as the official industry charity partner of the California Restaurant Show, running Aug. 23-25, 2026, at the Anaheim Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Ave. Floor hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday and Monday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Feed, Educate, Train, Employ

Chefs Feeding Kids is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2009 and based in Rohnert Park, California. Its mission is to combat childhood food insecurity, and it organizes everything it does around four words: Feed, Educate, Train, Employ.

The framing matters, because it describes a ladder rather than a handout.

Feed is the front door: monthly hands-on culinary classes delivered through the organization’s Chef Ambassador network, run in partnership with local nonprofits including the YMCA, the Junior League and Autism Speaks. Classes serve children and young adults ages 9 to 18 and lean on the cuisines kids actually want to make - pasta and pizza - paired with nutrition education.

Educate extends past the classroom, with healthy eating guidance and approachable recipes published through the organization’s site, plus a recipe cost calculator that puts a per-portion number in front of anyone learning to cook on a budget.

Train is the organization’s planned next step. Chefs Feeding Kids says it is fundraising and laying the groundwork for a Culinary Center while building partnerships that can expand hands-on instruction.

Employ is the top rung: creating pathways into foodservice jobs for the young people who came in through the first three.

The organization cites Feeding America data from 2024 indicating that one in five children in the United States is uncertain about their next meal. Its own answer to that is characteristically hands-on: “With just a simple cup of flour, we show kids how to turn it into pasta or pizza - proof that a full belly is within their reach.”

The founder

Chefs Feeding Kids was founded by Glenn Cybulski, who serves as its executive director. His résumé is the kind that makes a nonprofit’s kitchen credible.

Cybulski has more than 40 years in the food industry and has opened or operated 28 restaurants. He is a certified pizzaiolo, trained at the Scuola Italiana Pizzaioli in Italy, with a specialty in Neapolitan preparation. He has collected national and international culinary awards across that career, including the Best Pizza in North America award at the 2007 Città di Napoli world pizza competition in Naples and recognition as World Pizza Champions Member of the Year in 2009.

On the operating side, he founded Persona Wood Fired Pizzeria, opening the first location in Santa Barbara in 2013, and later served as president and chief culinary officer for Stoner’s Pizza Joint. He has consulted for Papa Murphy’s, appeared on Food Network and taught at Pizza Today’s School of Pizzeria Management.

He is joined on the board by Pete Lachapelle, a former trade show executive with the International Pizza Expo and more than 40 years in food industry sales and marketing, and Matt Catherincchia, vice president of sales at Bellissimo Foods with more than 25 years in foodservice manufacturing and distribution.

That combination - a competition chef, a show executive and a distributor - explains a lot about why this particular charity fits comfortably on a convention floor.

The Chef Ambassador model

The Chef Ambassador Program is the organization’s operating engine, and its genius is in how little it asks.

Culinary professionals volunteer to teach free classes for kids. The minimum commitment is one class per year. Everything else is handled by Chefs Feeding Kids: ingredient procurement, scheduling, ticketing, curriculum development and branded materials. Corporate sponsors - the California Milk Advisory Board among them - fund the ingredients and program costs, which means the chef donates time and nothing else.

For a working chef, that is a solvable ask. A day, not a campaign.

The organization maintains ambassador profiles with photos, bios and social links, which gives participating chefs visibility in return and makes the program legible to the operators and brands who might sponsor it. Dozens of chef ambassadors are listed.

There are parallel tracks for people who are not going to be in a classroom: associate membership, associate partnership and corporate partnership, alongside direct donations processed through the organization’s site.

Who backs it

The partner list reads like a cross-section of the pizza and foodservice trade.

Corporate partners include VIA 313, the Detroit-style pizza brand; the California Milk Advisory Board, which promotes products made with Real California Milk; Food & Beverage Magazine; World Pizza Champions, the nonprofit dedicated to promoting pizza making as a respected craft; The Food Connector, a B2B foodservice marketing firm; and Ah-Beetz, the New Haven-style pizzeria in South Florida.

Associate partners include LW Measurements, Lilly’s Fresh Pasta, Pizza Equipment Pros and Perfect Crust - and, notably, four trade shows: the Pizza Tomorrow Summit, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, the New York Restaurant Show and the California Restaurant Show itself.

That last cluster is the tell. The Restaurant Events LLC portfolio has effectively adopted this organization across its calendar, which is why the Anaheim partnership reads as continuity rather than a one-off gesture.

On the floor in Anaheim

Chefs Feeding Kids participated in the 2025 California Restaurant Show, with board members on hand to walk attendees through the Feed-Educate-Train-Employ model and to talk through volunteer and partnership opportunities. It was, in the organization’s own description, an invitation to find out how to get involved and make a difference.

For 2026, the organization carries the official industry charity partner designation for a show expecting a substantial turnout - industry coverage reported more than 7,000 registrants for the 2025 edition - across a floor with more than 250 exhibitors, a three-day education program, the Culinary Innovation Theater headlined by Tyler Florence, and the Pizza Tomorrow Summit Pavilion with its U.S. Pizza Team competitions.

There is a natural fit between that pizza programming and this charity. The competitors stretching dough in the pavilion and the kids learning to turn a cup of flour into dinner are working with the same raw material and, in a real sense, the same skill.

The most useful thing a charity partnership does at a trade show is not fundraising. It is recruitment. A convention center in August is one of the very few places where several thousand professional cooks stand in one building at one time, most of them within arm’s reach of someone who could ask them for a single day of their year.

Chefs Feeding Kids will be asking. The ask is small, the infrastructure is already built, and the ingredients are already paid for.

Sources

• Chefs Feeding Kids - official site
• Chefs Feeding Kids - Who We Are
• Chefs Feeding Kids - Partners
• Chefs Feeding Kids - Get Involved
• Chefs Feeding Kids - California Restaurant Show exhibitor listing
• U.S. Pizza Team: Chefs Feeding Kids - Full Bellies, Bright Futures

• California Restaurant Show - Show Information
• California Restaurant Show - Press

Research verified August 8, 2026. Schedules, exhibitors, speakers, prices and access details may change; confirm current information with the organizer before attending.